Читать книгу Fostering Innovation. How to Build an Amazing IT Team онлайн

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Innovation doesn't exist without risk-taking. If you truly expect to innovate—and to thrive, you better innovate—you must embrace the idea that many of the initiatives you support, fund, and advocate for will be abject failures.

This goes back to the Laudato Hierarchy of IT Needs pyramid: when your foundation is solid, your IT costs are low, and your team is constantly delivering value, you have earned the right to take risks. When taking on a high-risk endeavor, be clear that there is a good chance it may not work. Be confident that the upside is worth the risk, and only gamble with the amount of money you can afford to lose.

When you examine today's most successful companies, you can easily correlate their results with their willingness to embrace risk.

When you're in a good place to innovate, you need to generate ideas. Here are some thought starters on the best places to find ideas:

 Talk to your front-line employees. The employees who deal directly with the customers understand the customer best. Sharon Leite, CEO at Vitamin Shoppe, holds roundtable discussions with store, distribution center, and corporate employees. This keeps Sharon close to the team—and she receives direct insights into what customers are asking for. Innovation is a key pillar at Vitamin Shoppe; it's built into our DNA.