Create a Culture of Innovation by Hiring Innovators
Is there any job that couldn’t use some innovation, a fresh look at the best way to do the job now with all the changes in technology? If you agree this is true, you need to look at new ways to hire. While specific job skills can always be taught, skills associated with creativity can be hard harder to find. When you hire, instead of focusing solely on experience, focus on soft skills: 1) innovation, 2) collaboration and 3) change management, all of which are needed to bring innovation to life.
Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong. The world changes so fast across every industry and sector that it goes without saying the role for which you’re hiring is going to change. We suggest screening for intelligence first.
To discover candidates with the requisite skills, rethink the interview questions you are asking. You might want to do a job benchmark to look at the skills the job really needs if you are looking for innovators. Ask questions about whether they’ve ever come up with a great idea and what happened to that idea. One I particularly like is “could you teach me something complicated I don’t know?”
Make sure you get them talking and asking you challenging questions. People who ask good questions are intelligent, interesting, communicative, and always seeking ideas and answers - exactly the type of characteristics you want.
Ask yourself, do I need innovation in this job (we say yes). If you do then train your people to look for the traits that will bring you the innovation, not the skills to do a job which will be changing.