In 2014, the World Intellectual Property Organization (a Geneva based, specialized agency of the United Nations) released its annual report on innovation statistics worldwide. The US ranked 6th, down one spot from 5th last year and ranked #1 in the category of Quality of Innovations. The human factor of creativity is the key aspect to sparking innovation and creating organizational cultures where research and development thrive. What role do leaders play in creating such cultures? To be sure, organizations are careful to choose highly competent and educated employees, but even then, there are some organizations that just out perform equally staffed organizations. But how do the best organizations create and support this? Research indicates that companies such as Google, Kodak, Pixar, Yahoo!, Southwest Airlines and the ice cream underdog story Ben & Jerry’s, all have interesting similarities in their culture. They play. They encourage humor and creativity and they work diligently to intrinsically motivate employees around mission and goals (rather than resorting to the “old stick and carrot” approach which has been shown to actually suppress innovation). These leaders of innovation make “play” time part of an employee’s schedule with regular time for non-work related activities. There are countless tales of incredible apps, products, services and process improvements originating from this “play” time. What can you do to foster creativity in your organization? Maybe it’s time to give the concept of fun some serious thought.

One of the largest employment jury verdicts in U.S. history was recently awarded against Memphis headquartered AutoZone, Inc. The jury awarded Rosario Juarez $185 million dollars in punitive damages ($25 million more than her $160 million punitive damages request) and another $872,00 for lost wages and emotional stress. The verdict included findings of gender and pregnancy discrimination, harassment/failure to prevent harassment and retaliation even though basic levels of training were in place. While AutoZone will eventually recover financially from this blow, what steps do they need to take to repair their reputation, ensure these kinds of violations don’t happen again and to restore employee trust and engagement? Training alone will not suffice. There will need to be a well-orchestrated plan to address the California Court’s and the EEOC’s concerns. And, what about your organization? What is your company doing to support its basic anti-harassment/discrimination policies? Statistics show that mere training is not enough. Successful companies use a combination of policies, consistent company messaging and modeling, organizational system design and strategic periodic professional development coaching and team facilitation as well as interactive and practical trainings. Now is the time to evaluate your culture and professional development plan. If you are ever in the position AutoZone found themselves in and are asked about what steps you took to support your training efforts to ensure they actually impacted your culture for a positive and safe work environment, what will you say?