In your organisation, are you sitting on a rich land of undiscovered potential?
Mastercard President and CEO Ajay Banga leads his workforce with a powerful metaphor: “I will create the feeling of my hand at your back, not in your face, and then you should run with it.”
So what are companies, like Mastercard and Microsoft, who are successfully discovering and unlocking potential, doing differently?
Here’s what studies have shown:
☑️ They have a clear, shared and compelling purpose, which aims to achieve something impactful that is bigger than the company itself
☑️ They have cultures that actively embrace equality and diversity in all its forms
☑️ They value a mindset of learning rather than knowing
☑️ They have cultures that create a real sense of belonging and feeling valued
☑️ They cultivate an innovation mindset which embraces failure, experimentation, autonomy and collaboration
☑️ They have leadership teams that are accessible, inspirational, accountable, bold, have integrity and who trust, empower and encourage their teams to organise and make decisions that enable them to deliver against their mission
☑️ They create the environment for their valuable human assets to thrive, create and learn with enthusiasm
☑️ They actively encourage their workforce to take advantage of supportive policies and practices to ensure they are able to balance non-work commitments and interests in harmony with work commitments
☑️ They ensure people have the time, tools and tech they need to connect, collaborate, experiment and innovate.
Studies have shown that creating and nurturing this sort of work-life environment results in a 6x increase in innovative thinking, because people are less afraid to fail.
They feel safe to get it wrong and try again.
They feel safe to share ideas, to disagree, to let go of having answers and to learn and co-create.
They feel safe to go big!
They feel safe because they know that the people who hold power within the organization have their back.
Consider this…
Given that Accenture, based on their 2019 survey of over 18,000 employees in 27 countries, estimates that global GDP would increase by up to US$8 trillion by 2028 if innovative potential was unleashed in all countries by just 10%, can you afford to neglect the richness of innovative potential within your organisation?
You hold the key.
What are you going to do with it?
