Beware of burnout
Constantly pushing employees to be innovative — or even just having innovative employees who push themselves too hard — can elevate stress levels and cause burnout.
The trick, Kohrt says, is to vary what employees do.
“We have people who may be working on two or three projects
simultaneously,” he says. “That’s part of the appeal of working at
Battelle: You get to try lots of different things.
“The people here work phenomenally hard. If there’s burnout, it
tends to be because there are not enough hours and too many
demands, so it’s more of a physical burnout than a burnout based on,
‘I don’t have any more ideas.’
“One way to avoid that is to get people different experiences —
especially early in their careers. It’s one of our initiatives to focus on
getting people broader experience so they can be more adaptive.”
Not only does that challenge different parts of their brains, but it
can help a talented innovator avoid obsolescence.
“The world changes rapidly, and if you’re best at a narrow area, that
area may become irrelevant,” Kohrt says. “And knowing the most
about the least important thing is not very valuable.”
A small pat on the back can also help recharge the batteries in an
otherwise overworked or overwhelmed employee.
“The best thing is for me or other managers or leaders to wander
into the laboratories and just show curiosity,” he says. “They love to
talk about their work.”
So much so that Kohrt devoted one entire board of directors meeting at Battelle this past winter specifically to innovation.
“We had several of our actual researchers there, and they had poster
sessions where our board members spent two hours going poster to
poster listening to and talking to our staff and having dinner afterward,” he says.
It was a real motivator.
“And word gets around that management values creative ideas,” he
says.