無論是要形成創造性思維，還是創新精神，都沒有靈驗的咒語或捷徑可走。創新者之所以熱衷行動，是因為創新是最能將想法變成現實的途徑。我發現，遵循以下要點可以有效打造既有活力又富于創新精神的企業。

1、營造包容的文化氛圍

通過設定目標，以及為團隊指明實現目標的最佳路徑，高層領導者可以最大限度地發掘團隊成員的潛力。

創新的精神、旺盛的斗志以及協作堅持的毅力都是實施“目標導向”戰略之后的自然結果，長此以往，團隊會得到激勵和信任，有助于尋找達到企業目標的創新方法。比如，美國二手家具交易網站Chairish的開發流程鼓勵工程師提出改造產品的建議，并將與企業整體目標一致的提議付諸實施。開發流程之所以能管控潛在的混亂，因為流程中每處變動都經過整個團隊的反復推敲。Chairish在應用中嵌入蘋果手機支付系統Apple Pay前就經歷了去中心化的審查過程，公司的iOS系統負責人身先士卒，獨立開發出了設計方案。最終Chairish成為蘋果電子商店App Store首批支持Apple Pay的應用，推出后得到了大力推廣。

2、靈活應變

機遇總是在意想不到的地方冒出來，一旦機遇出現，有創新精神的團隊會靈活應變隨時準備調整。Chairish大量使用A/B計劃測試新想法，選出其中有效的應用在實踐中。公司首次推出“買家出價”特色功能時，只適用于在網站發布七天后的產品。Chairish希望讓賣家有機會拿下盡可能高的成交價。我們也希望借這個機會測試買家出價的概念，所以冒著風險立即推出了功能。事實證明，新功能引起了極大反響。Chairish全價購買交易量并沒有減少，還通過“買家出價”大幅提高了成交量。

3、接受失敗

雖說是老生常談，但失敗的確是創新的一部分。事實上，失敗的想法有可能指出令人興奮的新方向。Chairish成立之初為了增加上架商品數目，公司推出了一項類似門房的服務，會派人前往賣家的家中挑選待售商品，然后存放在當地的倉庫里。通過這個辦法，Chairish上確實有了待出售的物品，可運輸、存儲和上架過程成本過高，與收入很難成比例，所以該服務推出沒多久就被叫停。這次經歷給予Chairish的啟示是，在盡可能幫賣家創造價值的同時，要精簡上架流程和管理標準。

4、保持小規模

在企業規模增長的同時，如何保持創新的文化氛圍是讓所有企業家傷腦筋的問題，我也不例外。如果不注意控制擴張節奏，一旦規模臃腫，官僚主義滋生，就會挫傷員工創新的積極性，企業執行創新的腳步也會遲緩。我發現，去中心化是緩解企業成功壓力的有效方式，也能讓各團隊保持小規模，從而努力堅持讓企業走向成功的寶貴創新精神。（財富中文網）

本文作者埃里克?克羅瑟（Eric Grosse）是美國二手家具交易網站Chairish的創始人兼首席執行官。

譯者：Pessy

審稿：夏林

When it comes to creative thinking and innovation, there are no magic wands or silver bullets. Innovators thrive on action, as there is no more powerful motivator than the prospect of turning a new idea into reality. I’ve found the following themes are a great way to foster an energized and innovative organization.

Create an inclusive culture

Senior leaders get the most out of their teams by setting goals and giving their teams latitude on how best to achieve them.

Creativity, scrappiness, and collaborative persistence are the natural byproducts of this kind of a goal-oriented approach, where teams are encouraged and trusted to find innovative ways to accomplish business objectives. For example, Chairish’s development process encourages any engineer to propose and implement product changes that align with overall business goals. The potential for chaos is managed by a development process that culminates in a full-team peer review for every change. Chairish’s implementation of Apple Pay came about through this decentralized process, as our iOS lead championed and developed the design on his own. The result was one of the first working implementations of Apple Pay in the App Store that led to significant promotion of our app at launch.

Be flexible and responsive

Opportunities pop up unexpectedly and when they do, innovative teams are nimble and ready to adjust. At Chairish, we make heavy use of A/B testing to try out new concepts and roll out ones that work. When we first launched our “Make An Offer” feature, it was only available after a product was live on our site forseven days. We wanted to give the sellers the opportunity to capture the highest possible price for the item. We wanted to test this theory, so we took a risk and tried making that feature available immediately. The impact was significant. Not only did we maintain the same number of full-price purchases, but we vastly increased the number of transactions via Make An Offer.

Embrace failure

It’s been said before, but failure truly is part of the creative process. Ideas that don’t work out can lead to exciting new directions. When Chairish first started, we needed listings so we offered a concierge-style service where we went to people’s homes, picked up their items, and housed them in a local warehouse. We achieved our goal of having product to sell, but the shipping, storage and onboarding process proved difficult to scale, so we moved away from that model early on. This experience inspired us to streamline our listings process and curatorial standards while still offering significant value to sellers.

Keep things small

Maintaining a creative culture and environment as a company grows is a vexing issue for any entrepreneur, including me. Left unchecked, size and bureaucracy can act as a wet blanket for innovation and slow a company’s ability to execute against its creative reservoir. I’ve found decentralization to be an effective counterforce to the organizational weight of success, enabling teams to stay small and focused on maintaining the innovative spirit that brought success in the first place.