To find out more about the innovation team assembly, BlueCallom invited Luuk Houtepen, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Innovation at SThree, as a guest speaker of the fifth BlueCallom podcast episode. 

SThree is a leading international staffing company. They provide specialist contract and permanent recruitment services in the STEM sector. If someone knows what the recruitment process looks like and how to create the best selection of talented candidates for a company, it’s Luuk with his rich experience at the SThree company.

The importance of the Innovation Dream Team Assembly 

Since ideas are created from past experiences it is extremely important to have a diverse team. Why is that so? Providing diversity within your company creates a conducive environment in which employees can learn from and about one another and as a result, we get a comprehensive team that can handle any project. Just like educational background, the possession of soft skills is vital for the organization. 

It is not easy to define what innovation talent is but Luuk describes it as the doers, thinkers who get things done and dare to go for their dreams. They have to be driven by passion, be courageous, creative, collaborative but at the same time with extensive knowledge behind them. Innovation talent can be recognized only if they get the right nurturing and the right foundation to grow. 

Soft skills are becoming more and more important and employers recognized that. Thanks to soft skills one can grow its network, gain confidence and maintain relationships – grow a career. Luuk also mentioned that new management methods lead to having more collaborative skills since they are essential for success in the workplace, and ultimately the company’s success and productivity. For innovative talent, one thing is crucial – believing in the long-term goal which has to be clearly defined to attract the right people. 

From Luuk’s experience, candidates are looking for purpose-driven roles that are not only financially motivated. Once people notice their job really matters and their significant work can only motivate them better. 

A good example of this is a consultancy business where in the past this was one of the most desirable jobs because it offered material benefits: the usage of the company’s car, PC, mobile phone, etc. This was in a way a measure of business success. Luckily this has changed and today most organizations are purpose-driven whose employees are highly engaged and passionate about making a difference.

Career in Innovation

We ask Luuk, what is important to have a successful innovation career? Open-mindedness and broad interest come first on his list. These skills are difficult to train and it gets more challenging if your educational background is old-fashioned – in order to be acknowledged, you must become a specialist. Also, we have to keep in mind that innovation is unpredictable and it doesn’t always mean success. And here is where The 8 Cs of innovation talent come into play: Curious, Courageous, Continuous, Collaborative, Creative, Communicative, Confident, and Connected. 

Recruitment Industry Problems 

Other than the lack of talent available, the other problems SThree company is facing are home office efficiency, online hiring process, legislation regarding the working hours (working in a more flexible way), and legislation in terms of tax obligations, social securities, civil obligations. The positive side is more openness. Countries that were more local-oriented when it comes to recruitment, are now accepting foreign candidates. 

Digital testing of soft skills is very limited and can be helpful in the preselection process but it can also cause a counter-effect: how do you know people are answering honestly? Face-to-Face interviews still offer a higher level of engagement and you can get a better sense of someone’s interpersonal skills. 

Groundbreaking innovation in recruiting industry 

We asked Luuk which groundbreaking innovation would truly impact their business. Here is what is said: having a recruitment organization whose main business is advising not selling with an emphasis on the trusting relationship. 

Summary 

An innovation dream team is always a diverse team, with different backgrounds and experiences. By bringing different skills, talents, and unique solutions to the table, diverse employees strengthen creativity and innovation. 

There are many benefits of having a diverse team: 

• superior problem-solving 
• increase productivity and motivation 
• attract top talents 
• Increase profit

If you would like to listen or download the whole episode of the Navigation of Ingenuity podcast with Luuk Houtepen please visit: https://dev.bluecallom.com/podcast/

Authored by: Tanja Sopcic

The post Team Assembly – Importance of Innovation Dream Team appeared first on BlueCallom.

1) RESEARCH TRAP

Having trouble analyzing your market to discover real innovation opportunities or risks to get disrupted?

STATUS QUO
Today we ask questions hoping to hear that our customers tell us what they need and how you can improve. We ask far too many questions. The results are at the very best improvements for the here and now – never innovation.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Using a methodical approach for a needs & dreams analysis leads to current and future visions. There are only two times one question. What is the best possible product for you? And in a different interview another question about their dreams. Then it’s all about the analysis of that two times one question.

2) EXPERTS TRAP

Are you still working with innovation teams that are loaded with experts and only a few market-facing minds?

STATUS QUO
The majority of innovation labs are assembled with top experts. If you add more, you get more of the same but it is impossible to get to groundbreaking innovation.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Assemble a highly diverse Innovation Dream Team with carefully selected talents – not skills. It’s all about intelligent team compositions.

3) BRAINSTORMING TRAP

Are you still using yellow post-its, whiteboards, and brainstorming as your top ideation tools?

STATUS QUO
Ideation is done in one, two, or three brainstorm meetings. But our brain is not releasing deeply rooted groundbreaking innovations. Because it is structured to work very differently.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Learn all about Neuro Ideation, how our mind composes thoughts and ideas, and how we can stimulate it to release amazing concepts in just a few weeks – yes, it isn’t just a brain dump.

4) CREATIVITY TRAP

Do you feel you are super creative only the infrastructure and organization are not up to par?

STATUS QUO
The majority of innovation center members reported that they feel they are exceptionally creative but are limited by the organization, infrastructure, or otherwise.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Review the degree of impossibility of the idea and conduct a methodical market validation. You will know in just two weeks if organization and infrastructure are the biggest limitations. In most cases, it is a natural misperception.

5) APPROVAL TRAP

Struggling with getting your executives to finance and approve disruptive innovation concepts?

STATUS QUO
In particular, the most innovative ideas fail to get attention, financial support, and approval from the executive teams.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
When learning about Neuro Ideation it becomes obvious why most disruptive ideas get initially rejected, no matter from whom. “Experience Transmission” is part of the staged Financing Method.

6) EXPERIMENTATION TRAP

Are you still believing that experimentation, pivoting, and prototyping will unfold all of a sudden a magical innovation?

STATUS QUO
The idea that experimentation, pivoting, and rapid prototyping is a preferred innovation method. Fail and fail fast to try as much as possible. If we don’t know how our mind composes ideas, it is our only way to move forward.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Build your target innovation on the needs and dreams analysis, compile the inputs, and conduct Neuro Ideation sessions, involve the management in all episodes. You will experience an unimaginable logical result that is fundable without random experimentation.

7) THE GUESSWORK TRAP

Are you still HOPING you have a great idea, HOPING your customers will like it, HOPING you get the funding, and HOPING it will be a success?

STATUS QUO
The act of innovation is largely built on hope. Even though nobody would actually admit it.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Think through the entire innovation life cycle from finding out what and where to innovate all the way to bring such innovation successfully to market. Explore the Deep Innovation Design model. You may notice that the Neuro Ideation method has a far-reaching influence on all facets of the Innovation Life Cycle.

Obviously, you can manage the “Status Quo” with a project management tool. But isn’t that making something dysfunctional even worse and you can get caught in one or more of these innovation traps? Prior to founding BlueCallom, we did that too – and despite the love and energy for innovation, the process never really excited us. We just didn’t know why.

After learning a lot about neuroscience and how ideas are composed in our minds, we created the neuro ideation method. Little did we know that Neuro Ideation is changing the entire Innovation Life Cycle and unfolds all of a sudden a logical, natural, and manageable innovation flow.

Hope it was insightful.

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