The Innovative & Creative Team

How to Inspire Risk-Taking and Prototyping

Innovative Culture

An innovative culture is created through storytelling, open dialogue, and action. A clear vision for achievement is developed by acknowledging the ideal final product. The foundational ingredient is creativity which leads to innovation. Idea creation must be standard practice and encouraged. Collaborating through deep conversation and mind mapping leads to effective workspaces. Fostering the creative spirit leads to growth. Embed these ideals in the vision and mission statements.

Vision & Goals to Promote Creativity

Every team should have a clear vision and goals. As football coaches, we routinely modified our vision and goals for each season. They would be based on the personality of the team and what direction we were heading. We would identify what we needed to work on to reach our goals. In my final season, the central theme that surfaced was creativity. We wanted to instill a spirit of invention in our team.

The best players across all sports are creative with their movement and strategy. As coaches, we found that many of our players were coachable, almost to a fault. We discovered that many players had become robotic. They wouldn’t do it if we didn’t tell them to do it. There is a line between coaching well by giving players the tools they need and overcoaching, which eliminates creative movement and playmaking ability. We wanted to promote creativity and give our players the tools they needed to play free and embrace their abilities. Give players ownership and let them explore their capabilities.

Encouraging Risk-taking and Experimentation

Bold Innovation

Fortune favors the bold – Terence

Innovation requires bold moves. We must overcome the temptation to remain the same or fit in. Seth Godin calls it creating a “Purple Cow.” In marketing and product creation, the idea is to create a unique message or object that draws the consumer’s eye. The “Purple Cow” in the field stops traffic. It takes courage to create and share something extraordinary. To create an innovative culture, leaders must encourage this behavior. They must take educated risks to model the behavior.

Football is the ultimate arena for creativity and risk-taking. Idea creation is at the core of coaching. There is a level of risk-taking when implementing new concepts and play calls. The coach draws up the play, teaches the idea, and the team practices it. The anticipation of whether the play will be successful or not is intoxicating. Many coaches remain in the game for years because they love this process. Coaches, players, and fans romanticize trick plays because of their creative spirit. New plays are an example of risk-taking and experimentation and must enter a prototyping phase.

Calculated Risk-Taking

Although it is essential to rely on the base offense and defense, it is also vital that we introduce new and creative concepts. It supports an innovative culture. Players and staff take on this growth mindset. There are other ways to implement calculated risk-taking into the team. Coaches take a risk when they identify a system they have in place and choose to modify it. For example, suppose meetings need to be more efficiently run, and they need to maximize their time. In that case, creative coaches will adjust how meetings are delivered and the length of time. If pre-practice needs to create more value, the coach will modify how it operates.

As coaches adjust, players can modify their behavior as well. They should be encouraged to explore and take calculated risks. If players are to experience growth in an area, teach them to explore and create prototypes. As a former wide receiver coach, releases off the line require creativity, planning, and strategy:

Creative Opportunity – Wide Receiver Releases

• Body posture they present to the defensive back
• Weight distribution
• First step
• Hand fighting
• Many more intricacies

In practice, wide receivers should have the opportunity to explore once they’ve established the basics. There are examples of this across all positions in football. Take advantage of these opportunities to promote the creative spirit. Talk openly about trying new things once the fundamentals are secure. Fundamentals should be practiced every day and reinforced. Expansion, however, is ok. Refrain from robbing players or professionals of opportunities to grow beyond expectations.

Conclusion

If you enjoyed this leadership post, take a look at Youniversalife Leadership. This blog post describes various leadership styles in greater detail. You can spend time identifying what type of leader you are.

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Keep Moving Forward!

Ben