Even sole proprietors need to find ways to maintain an environment that encourages creativity. Achieve a higher level of competitiveness in your niche by developing a spirit of innovation within your team.

Consider these tips from the Harvard Business Review

• Implement an immediate innovation. As a team, identify ideas that will reduce costs, save time, or improve customer service. Pick one or two to implement right away to demonstrate success.
• Identify an ambitious goal. Once your team has confidence in its ability to innovate, set a larger goal. Can you reduce costs by 50%? Can you combine services to help customers?
• Continually foster innovation. Include “Innovation” as a category in performance reviews. Recognize colleagues who try new approaches even if the results aren’t perfect. And, give people time to think and experiment.

Adapted from “Innovation Is Everyone’s Job” by Ron Ashkenas.

Related articles

• How Diversity Inspires Innovation (bigthink.com)