Not all organizations, it seems, want their employees to "think outside the box," the Conference Board of Canada found, as it embarked on a new research project on innovation.

When Conference Board researcher Douglas Watt recently toured the country gathering information for an innovation skills profile, he was told quite bluntly by some employers: "We don't want all of our employees to be innovative."

Understandably, Mr. Watt said in a recent interview, "the banks don't want tellers to be innovative in how they hand out money, we don't want accountants to be too innovative in how they report the financial results -- think of Enron."

However, even the most structured organizations could benefit from a freer flow of ideas that might lead to improvements in the products or services they provide, he said, as the Conference Board introduced its profile of "the skills, attitudes and behaviours you need to contribute to innovation in the workplace."

Mr. Watt said innovation involves more than "just coming up with new ideas and doing things out of the box. . .

Innovation only happens when an idea is implemented.

Successful innovation in organizations requires a combination of skills, supportive cultures and climates, structures and processes and leadership."

Without a supportive culture, he said, "great ideas can die on the floor, on the table or on somebody's desk."

There is growing awareness among Canadian employers about the importance of innovation, Mr. Watt said, but there is also widespread uncertainty about how to foster an innovative culture without losing control.

"The innovation skills profile isolates the unique contribution that an individual's skills, attitudes and behaviours make to an organization's innovation performance by focusing on creativity and continuous-improvement skills, risk-taking skills, relationship-building skills, and implementation skills," the Conference Board said in releasing its innovation skills checklist last week.

"No one individual will have all those skills," Mr. Watt said. "Some will be creative, others will be risk takers, others will be great implementers."

The challenge is not only to recognize those skills -- as a number of employers now do in the performance appraisal process -- but to manage the organization in such a way that it benefits from the collective strengths of the group.

"Canada's future prosperity depends on improving innovative performance," said Mr. Watt, adding that, on average, 10 to 12 per cent of corporate revenue in Canada is generated from the sale of new products.

The Conference Board has issued a series of recommendations on how to manage and support innovation.

To foster creativity and continuous improvement, organizational leaders should:

Demonstrate trust in other people's ideas and actions.

Nurture and promote creativity and inventiveness.

Question and challenge the way you operate -- think beyond individual and organizational comfort zones.

Project a vision of where you want to go -- keep the big picture in mind.

Be open to new ideas and different ways of doing things -- commit to continuous improvement.

Monitor success to find ways to continuously improve.

Recognize and reward original ideas and ideas for improvement.

To support the skills, attitudes and behaviours needed to take calculated risks and be entrepreneurial:

Encourage individuals and teams to bring forward new ideas for action.

Support risk by monitoring and evaluating decisions and actions.

Be resilient in the face of setbacks, mistakes and potential mistakes.

Accept failures and learn from them.

Recognize and reward risk taking.

To develop and maintain workplace relationships that support innovation:

Encourage, mentor and coach others to share ideas and speak freely -- foster an atmosphere of open-mindedness.

Involve others by delegating responsibility and supporting their efforts.

Make it easy for groups of people to collaborate and deliver new solutions.

Allocate resources for networking and sharing ideas, knowledge and skills.

Provide honest praise and constructive criticism to teams.

To support implementation of the best new ideas, managers should:

Adopt and promote a "can-do" attitude.

Be proactive in leading and responding to change.

Empower employees to make decisions.

Tolerate mistakes when trying out new ideas.

Make change visible -- highlight new and improved products, services and processes.

Measure the impacts of a solution on performance, productivity and financial results.

vgalt@globeandmail.ca