Innovation is one of those words that can make us think big: the breakthrough idea, the new product, the lightbulb moment that changes everything.
But after more than thirty years in business, I have come to believe that most innovation does not happen like that. It happens in much smaller ways.
Someone notices something that could work better. A customer asks an interesting question. A team member wonders why we still do something a certain way. A franchisee tries something differently and gets a surprising result.
They notice, question, try, learn and adapt. And something improves.
Innovation is not necessarily inspiration. It is a habit.
But if we want people across our businesses to develop that habit, we have to create a culture where their ideas can actually survive.
Because most businesses probably do not have an ideas shortage. They may have an ideas culture problem.
Think about what happens when somebody brings us an idea. How quickly do we respond with, “We tried that before”, “That will not work” or “There is a reason we do it this way”?
I know I have been guilty of some of these.
Experience is hugely valuable. It gives us context, knowledge and perspective. But it can also make it very easy to explain why something will not work before we have really explored why it might.
And there is another question leaders should ask themselves: do the best ideas in your organisation ever reach the people who need to hear them?
Who hears an idea first? Who filters it? What makes them decide whether it is worth passing on?
Perhaps an idea sounds completely crazy when judged against where the business is today. But could it fit in three or five years? Could part of it solve another problem? Could it connect with something else happening in the business?
We need filters. Not every idea is a good one. But we also need to be careful that, in filtering out the impractical ideas, we do not inadvertently filter out the brilliant ones.
For me, there are three habits that can help create a more innovative culture.
Listen first, and let your ego go
Innovation starts with information, and some of the best information is unfiltered.
Listen to customers, franchisees, your team, suppliers and partners. Listen to the newest person in the room who has not yet learnt “how we do things around here”.
Fresh eyes can be incredibly valuable.
In franchising, this is particularly powerful because franchisees are close to their local markets. They see frustrations, behaviours and opportunities that may take much longer to become visible at head office.
But we have to genuinely listen, and that means resisting the urge to immediately explain, defend or correct.
Sometimes it also means letting our ego go.
If somebody questions a process we created or suggests a different way of doing something, it can feel personal. Instead, get curious. What are you seeing that I am not? Why do you think this could work? What are customers telling you?
Other people’s ideas are gold.
And recognition matters too. If people keep contributing ideas that disappear into a black hole, eventually they will stop.
Give people credit. Let them know what happened. Tell them when their thinking sparked something.
When people know their contribution is valued, they contribute more.
One suggestion might improve a process. Another might improve the customer experience. Another could become a new service or income stream.
You simply do not know until you listen.
Stop waiting for the big idea
When I speak about creativity, there is nearly always someone who says, “But I am not creative.”
I understand why. We often think creativity means artistic ability.
But creativity is much broader than that. It is problem-solving, making connections, questioning assumptions, spotting opportunities and seeing possibilities others might miss.
That means innovation does not belong to a few people labelled “creative”. It is something everyone can contribute to.
I love the Japanese principle of Kaizen: continuous improvement through small, incremental changes.
There is something very powerful about asking how we can make something just 1% better.
It might be one less step in a process, one better question in a sales conversation, one improvement to the customer journey or one new way of reaching people locally.
None of those sounds revolutionary.
But small improvements compound.
More importantly, they create a habit of noticing.
Imagine the collective impact if everyone across a franchise network regularly asked: what could we make 1% better?
You do not need one person having a million-pound idea. You can have hundreds of observations, ideas and improvements continually moving the business forward.
That, to me, is an innovation culture.
Do, learn and adapt
The third habit is being prepared to start before you know everything.
We can spend so much time trying to map out the perfect route that we forget that sometimes the route only becomes clear once we start moving.
Ideas come from doing.
You try something. You see how people respond. Something unexpected happens. You learn. You change it. You try again.
Doing creates learning. And learning creates ideas.
Of course, if we are genuinely experimenting, not everything will work.
I love the interpretation of FAIL as First Attempt In Learning.
That does not mean celebrating careless mistakes. It means recognising that sensible experimentation involves uncertainty.
Tata Group famously created a Dare to Try award as part of its innovation programme, recognising ambitious attempts that did not achieve the intended outcome.
Learning has value, even when the outcome is not what we hoped for.
If everything we try works, perhaps we are not experimenting enough.
So instead of only asking, “Did it work?”, perhaps we should also ask: “What did we learn?”
That small shift can change how safe people feel to experiment and how willing they are to bring forward the next idea.
A proven system should not be a frozen system
There is a fascinating tension here for franchising.
The power of franchising is a proven system. We find what works, document it, train people and create consistency.
But a proven system should not be a frozen system.
Customers change. Technology changes. Communities change. Competitors change.
The strongest franchise systems will protect the things that make their model successful while continually learning from the collective intelligence of the people within them.
It starts with culture: listening before dismissing, making sure ideas can travel to the right people, recognising those who contribute, looking for small improvements and creating enough space to try, learn and adapt.
Because the most innovative businesses will not necessarily be those with the biggest ideas or even the people who consider themselves the most creative.
They will be the businesses that make creativity and continuous improvement a habit.
So perhaps there are two questions worth asking today.
What could we make 1% better?
And perhaps the more uncomfortable one: what brilliant idea might already be sitting somewhere in our business, waiting for us to listen?
