A Challenge-Based Culture
An innovative culture requires that employees challenge assumptions and question the status quo. A fear-based culture does not allow those practices. In some organizations, it may be political death to continually ask questions like:
• Why does that process take 14 steps?
• Why are we using aluminum in that product?
• Why is the sales force structured that way?
• Why do we have to fill out that form?
In innovative cultures, these questions lead to cost savings, efficiencies, and innovations. Innovators challenge the industry orthodoxies. They eat sacred cows. They test assumptions ruthlessly. They ask “Why?”
Examine the insurance industry, for example. If you wanted to buy insurance years ago, you had to ...
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