I received a call from my big brother, Jonathan, this past week after he read my previous article about our fourth annual innovation event that we call Invent. He works in the technology field, so we often talk shop.

We talked a little bit about some of the innovative projects we are working on. We also briefly discussed the process of how we manage innovation, but we spent the most time talking about why. I launched into a thorough explanation of why this innovation event is important to us. After the call, it occurred to me that I’ve never written an article to explain the thinking to all of you, so here we go.

Why

The leaders of our IT organization wanted to make our team better. We wanted our team members to enthusiastically engage in their work and tell their colleagues working at other companies that CHS is a great place to work. This was the challenge we need to solve in order to retain and attract the best talent to enable us to achieve our aspirational goals.

So, where do you start when you want to accomplish something so foundational and transformational? We sat down and read a book together. That book was Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.

Motivation

I won’t summarize the whole book for you, but I will briefly describe the three keys that unlock intrinsic motivation on a team:

1. Autonomy: Team members need to have some control over how they spend their time and some choice as to what they work on.
2. Mastery: Team members need an opportunity to learn new skills and develop expertise in a subject matter.
3. Purpose: Team members need their work to have intrinsic meaning and to connect to a higher organizational purpose.

Before I go any further, I’d like to express that CHS has a fantastic, noble, and worthy purpose. We create connections to empower agriculture. My responsibility as a leader is to provide clear line-of-sight for each team member to see how their own work contributes to that purpose.

Innovation is the solution

The goal was to create better conditions for a world-class team. Our innovation event was the solution. With our Invent program, we use the principle of autonomy to allocate time for team members to opt-in to work on a passion project of their choosing. They self-organize into teams.

Technologists naturally want to learn and master new skills, but sometimes lack the time and opportunity to do so. We provide both the time and the opportunity. Our Invent program gives the chance to build a proof-of-concept, then demo in front of a live audience. We give each inventor the chance to explain what worked, what didn’t, and how they can take their innovation forward.

The goal is not inventions

Most people think the goal of an innovation program is to produce fantastic inventions that change the organization and disrupt industries. This can happen, but not most of the time.

The focus is on the people and the process, not the product. We are building a culture of innovation. We are teaching our team members what is like to work in a state of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. We are equipping them with ways of thinking and working that apply well-beyond the confines of our Invent program.

This culture of innovation impacts the team 365 days a year, not just during the Invent season. As I shared last week, this culture of innovation has not been contained within IT, but has spread like wildfire to our business professionals in the company.

Graduates

Every year, we get a few Invent projects that go into production to make a permanent impact at CHS. We like to call those graduates. Every single one of them would have unlikely come about any other way.

Like most organizations, we have traditional ways of getting business professionals and technologists together to solve business problems and create customer value. However, we also have a non-traditional way, based on our innovation process.

This way is unlike the first way. The non-traditional way, produces different outcomes than the traditional way. Finally, the non-traditional way influences and improves the traditional way, so that we can bring innovative creativity and extra value to what each of us produces daily.

Innovation leadership

There’s a leadership principle at work here. At times, leaders can be too results-driven. I’ve found throughout my career, that if I focus on building the team, building the right culture, and casting a vision, then the results come.

At CHS, we talk about “planting the seeds of innovation.” I’ll credit Invent 2020’s co-lead, Shane VanderVoort, with coining the phrase. Given our industry, CHS likes to use farming analogies. Farmers don’t manufacture crops on-demand. They focus on the right seeds, soil, nutrients, equipment, and practices. It always takes the season to see the results.

At CHS, we plant the seeds of innovation. We don’t produce industry-disrupting inventions on-demand. However, given the right team, culture, vision, and innovation process, the results will come.

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