How Leaders Can Foster Innovation In A Hybrid Setting

The study, which assessed over 48,000 employees in different work environments, discovered a 22% drop in ideas per employee per month after adopting a hybrid work model. The economists concluded that while the quality of ideas didn’t decrease, their frequency of generation was significantly impacted.

For CEOs and executive leaders, this poses serious challenges. McKinsey’s analysis of 183 companies shows a strong, positive correlation between innovation performance and financial performance – a finding that will come as no surprise to most leaders. 

Despite this, hybrid work is here to stay, with the tensions between employee and employer generally landing on two or three days in the office. To make hybrid working effective, executive leaders must address the innovation gap.

Here are some of the most effective initiatives and approaches executive leaders can implement to foster innovation in a hybrid work setting:

Planning for spontaneity 

True innovation often emerges when it is not deliberately created. To foster this, leaders should encourage activities that deviate from the norm, introducing off-center thinking and playful exploration. One effective approach is using ideation techniques that stimulate creativity and bring together individuals who might not usually collaborate.

‘Planned spontaneity’ is one way of creating this type of thinking in a hybrid environment.

For example, asking "What’s the worst idea for customer experience?" can prompt unconventional thinking that breaks down barriers to creativity.

It’s a leader’s role to guide employees through these exercises in order to capture individual spontaneity, nudging them in the path of solving business challenges through their idea creation. They can then collect these ideas and refine them into something useful. 

Part of this is acting as the facilitator of innovation. This includes engaging quieter members of the team and drawing out their contributions by asking questions rather than making statements that could stifle discussion. The goal is to create an atmosphere where everyone feels encouraged to share their ideas without fear of being shut down.

Creating constant psychological safety

Leaders must actively work to create an environment of psychological safety to foster innovation in a hybrid setting. This safety allows employees to feel comfortable making mistakes, challenge authority, and explore alternative approaches. This commitment should extend beyond formal meetings to all interactions, reinforcing that feedback, curiosity, and gratitude are valued.

Often, this requires a change of mindset among leaders to see challenges and disagreement as opportunities to foster creativity and connection. For example, when receiving difficult feedback from team members, rather than becoming defensive, leaders can ask questions like “What are the obstacles?” or “How can I help?” to create a space for open discussion. 

Tellingly, Google’s Project Aristotle, which researched 180 teams at the company, found that psychological safety was the number one predictor of its high-performing teams. 

Leaders must maintain self-awareness and situational awareness to avoid missing valuable opportunities in daily interactions. By consistently promoting positive behaviors, they can serve as role models and mitigate the innovation challenges posed by hybrid working.

Embedding innovative behaviors through succession

Organizations need a leadership pipeline that understands and adapts to the hybrid work model. Succession plans should prioritize leaders who can guide teams, facilitate ideas, and cultivate psychological safety.

These abilities should not just be valued but measured and used as a key metric for evaluating leadership performance. Elevating the importance of leaders who can cultivate such environments will ensure that innovation and collaboration are maintained.

What’s more, succession plans often encourage cross-functional exposure. 

This broad experience fosters a more holistic understanding of the organization by exposing them to individuals they wouldn’t otherwise interact with, which can enhance and facilitate innovative thinking.

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