What does innovation mean as a company value?

Changing how something is done so that it works better, and getting others to adopt it. On most teams that means a meeting replaced, a report automated or a method borrowed from another team, rather than a new product. The small version is the one that happens weekly.

How do you recognise innovation on a team that does not build products?

Look for changed methods. Any team has processes, and the person who replaced one with something better, then convinced colleagues to use it, has innovated in the only sense that matters to the people around them.

Should you recognise an experiment that failed?

Yes, when it was run cheaply and stopped honestly. The colleague who kills their own idea after a month has done something rarer than proposing it. Recognising that keeps the next experiment small and the next admission possible.

What is the most under-recognised part of innovation?

Adoption. The idea takes an afternoon and the adoption takes a month of conversations, and the credit almost always goes to the afternoon.

Company values

Innovation

Innovation on values pages means a product nobody has built yet. On a real team it means somebody who changed how a Tuesday works, and that is the version worth recognising.

Well away from the lab

Innovation on a values page tends to mean a product nobody has invented yet. On a working team it means the colleague who replaced the status meeting with a document, or who automated the four-hour Monday report.

That version is unglamorous, frequent and rarely recognised, because it looks like tidying up.

Recognise the adoption

An idea takes an afternoon. Getting six teams to use it takes a month of conversations, demonstrations and patient re-explanation, and the credit goes to the afternoon almost every time.

The person who did the month is the one to thank.

How you would know

Tries the small thing first: Runs a cheap experiment before asking for a budget.
Kills their own idea: Stops a change that is not working, including one they proposed.
Gets the change adopted: Does the unglamorous work of making other people use the better method.
Steals from elsewhere: Brings back a method from another team or industry and makes it fit.

6 messages that name it

You replaced the weekly status meeting with a shared doc and a fifteen-minute call. The team got three hours a week back and nobody has asked for the meeting since.
Manager
A concrete change, measured, adopted.
Thanks for trialling the new review flow with two people before proposing it to everyone. It made the proposal impossible to argue with.
Peer
The cheap experiment first.
You proposed the migration, ran it for a month, and then stood up and said it was not working. That took more than proposing it did.
Manager
Killing your own idea is the behaviour.
You borrowed the incident format from the platform team and adapted it for support. Their write-ups have got shorter and more useful.
Peer
Adoption from elsewhere, with a result.
Six teams now use the template Amira built for herself in February. She spent March convincing them, which was the hard part.
Manager
Credits the adoption work over the invention.
You automated the report that took someone four hours every Monday. That somebody is you, and you did it anyway.
Peer
A small, self-interested improvement that still counts.

What its absence looks like

Where innovation is absent, every process is defended on the grounds that it is the process, experiments need approval before they can be small, and the person who proposes a change becomes responsible for its failure.

Recognising it well

Recognise the adoption as well as the idea. Getting six teams to use a template is harder than building it, and it is the part that determines whether anything changed.
Thank the person who stopped their own experiment. A team that only celebrates changes that worked has taught everyone to defend their proposals to the death.
Notice the small ones. Replacing a meeting with a document is innovation by any honest definition, and it is the kind that happens most often.

Questions people ask

What does innovation mean as a company value?: Changing how something is done so that it works better, and getting others to adopt it. On most teams that means a meeting replaced, a report automated or a method borrowed from another team, rather than a new product. The small version is the one that happens weekly.
How do you recognise innovation on a team that does not build products?: Look for changed methods. Any team has processes, and the person who replaced one with something better, then convinced colleagues to use it, has innovated in the only sense that matters to the people around them.
Should you recognise an experiment that failed?: Yes, when it was run cheaply and stopped honestly. The colleague who kills their own idea after a month has done something rarer than proposing it. Recognising that keeps the next experiment small and the next admission possible.
What is the most under-recognised part of innovation?: Adoption. The idea takes an afternoon and the adoption takes a month of conversations, and the credit almost always goes to the afternoon.