Encouraging Innovators and the Practice of Celebration 🙌

One of the joys of the role I get to play in the nonprofit sector is to promote and encourage innovation. Every organization, every institution, every product, and every person is on a natural lifecycle that, left unchanged, leads to slowing, plateauing, and decline.

The graveyards of history are littered with organizations and institutions that pioneered one way of doing things or another but failed to transition to the next model.

But the story doesn’t have to stop there, and that’s why innovation is so important. Innovation can create new s-curves, new life, and thriving.

This is why we must innovate. Reinvent ourselves. Stay true to our mission while innovating how we deliver and grow. 

As a part of this mission, one of the things I get to do is partner with organizations and groups of leaders who are committed to living lives of innovation and thriving. Who desire to grow through sustainable innovation. 

Above: A few of the groups of leaders passionate about innovation that I’ve had the privilege to be a part of or convene this year.

One of these groups I’m honored to participate in is the SIL International Innovation Advisory Group. SIL is “a global, faith-based nonprofit that works with local communities around the world to develop language solutions that expand possibilities for a better life.” They are involved with more than 1,600 language projects in 98 countries, impacting more than 855 million people, and have embraced innovation as a core part of their mission. 

Convened by Jon Hirst, Chief Innovation Officer at SIL, this group of innovation experts across sectors gathers monthly to provide input on innovation initiatives and challenges. It’s a combination of fellowship, connection, problem-solving input, and reflection, and it’s one of the best examples in the nonprofit space of cultivating an Outside Mindset, which is foundational to breakthrough innovation.

Jon is one of the most connected and passionate leaders of innovation that I know, and he and his team have cultivated a diverse group of innovators from around the world and across the nonprofit and business sectors. That is the Innovation Advisory Group, or IAG.

Jon shared with the IAG this past meeting that he and his team were headed off to Kenya the following week to host an Innovation Confab event with many of their international staff and partners. In light of this upcoming event, he asked us a simple but powerful question – what can we do to effectively encourage innovators? 

Above: Innovation is hard. It can be discouraging. So, it becomes important to consider what we can do to effectively encourage innovators.

This got me thinking – how does one encourage innovators?

In one word – Celebration. 

I believe that one of the most important ways to encourage innovation is the practice of celebration. 

In my experience, innovators don’t celebrate well. They are so driven to achieve, solve problems, and create new value that they don’t tend to slow down and celebrate.

So today, if you or your team needs encouragement, consider the following three ways to celebrate. 

Celebrate by Looking Back

When you’ve been climbing the mountain, when you are tired or discouraged, the best thing you can do is pause and take a few moments to reflect on how far you’ve come. The best way to do this is to turn around and look back down the mountain. I learned this most personally from my mentor, Bobb Biehl. Bobb describes it this way in his book Leadership Insights. 

ENCOURAGEMENT

When your team is discouraged, 

STOP!

and focus on your past milestones!

Ninety-nine percent of the time,

your team will move quickly

from feeling discouraged to feeling encouraged.

This is the fastest way I know of lifting team spirit!

Today, make a list of past milestones with your team.

You will find the list helpful in evening out your team’s ups and downs.

Whenever you feel yourself tiring in life’s up-the-mountain climb,

stop ...

look back ...

and make a list of your personal milestones.

You will feel personally encouraged!

- Bobb Biehl, Leadership Insights

(As an aside, if you want to be encouraged by powerful insights like this from Bobb, he has a free weekly email called Quick Wisdom. I highly encourage you to sign up.)

There are many ways to stop and reflect. If I sense my team or a client is discouraged, I will look for a strategic moment to invest 15-60 minutes reflecting – it might be taking a chunk of a staff or team meeting. Or at a natural time in the calendar, such as a quarterly or annual planning session. Reflect on how far we’ve come. 

I ask people to share milestones or things they are proud of from the past period of time. We’ll often write these up on the board or sticky notes. It’s amazing how encouraging it is to stop and reflect aloud on how far you’ve come. It puts the climb in perspective. 

The beginning of the calendar or fiscal year is another great time for doing this. I often kick off the first meetings of the year or quarter, asking people to share what they are thankful for and what they are proud of and celebrate together.

💡 Takeaway: Build in a regular practice of pausing to reflect, personally and as a team. Take a moment away from climbing the mountain, turn around, sit down, and enjoy the view.

Next, it’s crucial not just to celebrate the past but also the present, because innovation is hard.

Celebrate the Challenge

No one said innovation would be easy, but as humans, we tend to shy away from things that have friction or pain associated with them. The thing is, innovation is hard. If you are committed to inventing new S-curves, the you are committing to go through hard things. 

I find that instead of pretending innovation is easy and fun, it’s better to celebrate the challenges that come with doing hard things. It’s hard because it’s worth doing. It’s hard because breakthrough innovation requires learning new ways of doing things, exercising, and building new muscles.

Think of any sort of athletic endeavor worth doing. When I was in college, I ran the LA Marathon. By virtue of it being 26.2 miles of continuous running, I assumed it would be hard. But as we trained, we would celebrate along the way. That first time I was able to make the 3-mile loop by my apartment without walking was cause for celebration. That first 10 mile run with my running partner – we celebrated together. The pre-race 20-mile run just a week or so before the big day, we finished at the beach. It was hard, and we celebrated.

If you tell yourself that you will only celebrate once you achieve the final goal, you won’t do the hard things necessary along the way to achieve that ultimate end. So celebrate the hard things along the way.

💡 Takeaway: Innovation is hard. Instead of pretending it isn’t, celebrate the challenge. Look for milestones that indicate you are headed in the right direction, and openly acknowledge the reality that some days are just going to be hard, making celebration along the way all the more important. 

Finally, we can be encouraged to do the hard work of innovation by seeing the work we do in light of the broader context of history.

Celebrate this Time in History

One of my other favorite things is to place what we are doing today in the grand scheme of history – not just the history of the team or the organization but the history of our world.

For example, I’m doing a lot of talks and workshops right now on how AI is transforming fundraising and marketing. (See our newly released guide “12 Ways to Leverage AI in 2024”) 

AI can be an overwhelming topic. There is so much going on, and the technology is evolving so quickly that it feels impossible to keep up. It can be overwhelming. 

I start my talk about AI by telling the story of a new technology that people worried about. They were concerned that it would result in the loss of jobs and the spread of misinformation. Artists were concerned it would water down creative expression. Theologians were concerned that it would enable the spread of heresy. People were worried about unscrupulous business people taking advantage of others. 

Do you know what technology I’m referring to? 

The movable type printing press. Revealed to the world in 1452, the next 100 years were marked by many of these fears and concerns about this newfangled technology.

Above: Like many new technologies throughout history, the printing press brought with it many fears and disruptions in society. It changed and shaped the world, just as the internet would later do, and AI is doing today.

The past 500 years of history have proven that innovators who were able to utilize the technology of the printing press to learn, grow, develop, and spread their ideas have been used for to create tremendous good in our world.

We then look at artificial intelligence in the context of this history. In many ways, we are at about the same time that people like Martin Luther lived. They saw the opportunity to leverage this new technology to spread a set of ideas that they believed passionately about, which ultimately shaped the world we live in today.

What about you? What is the historical context in which you are leading? How can you help yourself and your team see the significance of what you are trying to do in light of history?

💡 Takeaway: In light of the scope of history, we are all but playing one small part in a grand narrative. That should drive us to humility and help us to see the great importance of pushing through to create breakthrough innovation.

Innovation is hard, but the journey is worth it. I hope you take the time to celebrate along the way. 

Until next week… Surfs Up! 🌊

  - Dave

About the Author | Dave Raley

Consultant, speaker, and writer Dave Raley is the founder of Imago Consulting, a firm that helps non-profits and businesses create profitable growth through sustainable innovation. He’s the author of a weekly trendspotting report called The Wave Report, and the co-founder of the Purpose & Profit Podcast — a show about the ideas at the intersection of nonprofit causes and for-profit brands.

Want to receive insights like this weekly?

Every Friday, we send out The Wave Report, highlighting one trend or insight “wave,” from donor and consumer trends to innovation in different industries or new models for growth.

Subscribe today to receive free weekly insights in your inbox here: