Pushing a Stagnating Company to Innovation

Pushing a Stagnating Company to Innovation

No company on the market is really insured against the possibility of finding itself in a stagnating situation. And when that happens, many leaders usually instinctively respond by trying to push things forward in full speed, often ignoring some internal safety measures that are there for a reason. It’s important to know what to do when you’re dealing with a situation like this, and more importantly, what not to do. Because in the end, your decisions at this stage of the company’s development can easily impact its whole future.

Getting to the Root Cause

One of the most important things to do first is to identify the root cause of the problem. Often, when a company has issues with stagnation, it can be traced back to a few common causes. A struggling management without a clear vision for the future is often one of the most notable problems, and it can also be difficult to deal with.

It can take some time to properly identify where the problem is coming for, so you should start the investigation process as early as possible. And in every case, make sure that you’re working with as much real data as possible, instead of guesses and estimates.

Small Steps

You shouldn’t expect this to be a fast process. Even if you do everything right at every step, it’s still going to take a while to see the company progressing and moving in the right direction. To this end, you should be patient and be prepared to wait until things pick back up. Don’t try to rush the process at any point, because this can only lead to more issues.

In fact, if you push too hard, you might even stall the whole process. This has happened to various companies in the past and is a common problem that can be difficult to avoid.

Cutting the Dead Weight

You’ll often come to the realization that most of the company’s problems are caused by some dead weight. This can have many different forms, but it has to be dealt with in any case. This can be challenging when it comes to people. If you realize that certain employees are the main factor holding back the progress of your organization, the obvious solution is to get rid of them.

But this can have some unexpected results across the whole organization, and it’s something you should be very careful about. Approach this in a determined, but sensitive manner, and be ready to have lots of hard conversations with your employees.

Tracking Progress

You should also ensure that your actions are having the right effect in the long run. This can only be done with sufficient tracking, data collection and analysis. There are lots of solutions on that front nowadays, and it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with them and figure out how to best integrate them into your own work.

In the end, the important thing is that you end up with an objective overview of your current situation that’s driven mainly by hard data and analytics. This can allow you to move in the right direction much more easily.

Maintaining the Momentum

Another important factor is to ensure that you keep things going after starting once. Momentum can be difficult to attain, but it can make things easier later on if you have been moving in the right direction to begin with. But keep in mind that sometimes you might need to fuel the fire of progress manually in additional steps. It’s not a process that you can just complete once and call it a day. It’s something ongoing that will require a lot of effort from you in the long run.

On the bright side, the effects tend to stack up. So once you’ve got the ball rolling, it can be easier and easier to keep things running in the right direction. And you’ll find that maintaining an innovative approach in your organization is not that hard when you have the right underlying foundation. Once you have things going, you’ll keep discovering new opportunities to maintain the company in a good condition, and you’ll come to many important realizations about what it means to have an innovative company in the first place.