With everyone rushing to be innovative, it’s easy to lose focus on why we need it in the first place: customers. Innovation isn’t an end-goal in and of itself – it’s a byproduct of trying to solve interesting and important problems. Rather than trying to innovate in order to “keep up with other companies,” focus your innovation efforts on meeting customer needs. Encourage your team members to ask: “What’s going on with our customers? What are they happy about? What aren’t they responding to? How can we better serve them?” Great innovations happen when people are inspired by a problem. If you want your team to start producing truly innovative outcomes, get out of the building and go talk to your customers. Listen to their challenges. Come up with ideas about how you can help them, and then figure out which ones you can act on.
Adapted from “
Successful Innovators Don’t Care About Innovating” by Doug Sundheim. 
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