This spring, ATD released Building an Innovative Organization: The Role of Training and Development, which examined innovation from the perspective of the training function. The research for the report was conducted in collaboration with Claude Legrand, one of North America’s top experts in innovation. Legrand specializes in researching the practical application of innovation in businesses.

The results from the report were discussed in an ATD webcast, hosted by Legrand (an archived recording is available to ATD members); but he will host another complimentary webcast with ATD and the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) on Thursday, delving into the body of research he has amassed on innovation in the workplace.

Legrand, who is also managing partner of Ideaction, a consulting and learning company, recently gave an interview to APQC, in which he says that innovation is found in an organization’s culture and processes. Training professionals should partner with HR and IT, as the policies and processes implemented by these departments can stifle – or enable – innovation. Working together, these functions can increase risk tolerance within their organizations, encourage diversity, model openness to change, and teach critical thinking skills. These systematic actions, Legrand says, will pave the way for innovators within an organization.

Meanwhile, organizations grasping unsuccessfully at innovation will attempt to hire “creative” people – when the talent they need is waiting to be unlocked within their own organizations. “…Innovation is a rigorous process,” Legrand says, “not a corporate value or an attitude that only ‘creative’ people possess. Because they don’t understand innovation, \[organizations\] make costly mistakes such as copying innovative organizations (who have a totally different DNA) or hiring ‘creative types,’ both solutions that are 100 percent certain to fail and probably create sustainable damage.”

The complimentary “Learning and the Innovating Organization” webcast will take place Thursday, August 28 at 10:30 CDT. Please go here to register.