B-Reel’s very own Yujin Lee, Executive Creative Director at our LA studio, recently shared her thoughts with Fast Company on five ways to keep teams excited about experimenting and innovating, and how you make a workplace ripe for innovation.

Under the pressure of business needs, including deadlines, strategic priorities or group dynamics, experimenting oftentimes takes a backseat. Yujin, shares five key ingredients she has learned throughout her fifteen years of experience, to ensure experimenting and innovation gets the attention it deserves. Below are some of her tips:

Create the work that you want to do: although it can be difficult to control the projects you work on, particularly in larger organizations, it's helpful to reimagine every opportunity to an aspect of the project you find interesting - and just focus on that.

Really enjoy doing that work: As the world has shifted toward a more remote work environment, with more global work opportunities, we can be choosier with where we work. This means that we can identify personal areas of interest and choose employers where we can do work that aligns with our areas of interest.

Hire for the skills versus the title: It’s important for employees to do work they are qualified for, and for organizations to hire people who are qualified for the roles at hand - that way, organizations can produce amazing work. If amazing work is created, it will most likely result in excitement and optimism from the team, who can see that their efforts are yielding great results.

Prioritize psychological safety: This starts at the top, where an environment should be created where the team feels comfortable in speaking up in large meetings, as well as daring to make mistakes and taking risks, hence creating an environment where the team is encouraged to experiment.

Provide a growth environment: this means finding ways to be detached from projects and outcomes, where a strong group dynamic is important. Lack of a strong team culture may foster lackluster innovation. A strong supportive team and a growth environment is therefore the last key ingredient in creating a workplace where experimentation and innovation can take place - and amazing work can happen.

Read the full article at fastcompany.com