Fostering Innovation

Share / assign

Why it works

Improvement requires trying new approaches, but innovation and productive risk-taking only happen in an environment where people feel safe to experiment and fail: where failure is punished or mistakes are held against people, staff play it safe, stick to what is comfortable, and stop innovating. Leaders foster innovation by building psychological safety (it is safe to try and to fail), actively encouraging experimentation and new ideas, framing failures as learning (and genuinely treating them that way), giving people permission, time, and support to try things, and modeling their own openness to new approaches and willingness to admit what did not work. The key is that fostering innovation is mostly about removing the fear and creating the safety that let good ideas be tried, and about learning from both successes and failures. Done well, it unlocks the creativity and continuous improvement that a fear-based culture suppresses.

The research: Research on innovation, risk-taking, and psychological safety.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

The core activity: create the safety for innovation

Leaders leave with ways to make innovation safe and encouraged.

Build psychological safety so it is safe to try and to fail.
Actively encourage experimentation and new ideas, with permission, time, and support.
Frame and genuinely treat failures as learning.
Model your own openness and willingness to admit what did not work.

Make it safe to try and failInnovation happens when people feel safe to experiment and fail. Build psychological safety, encourage experimentation, treat failures as learning, and model openness, to unlock improvement.

Facilitator notes

Build psychological safety, and encourage experimentation with support.
Treat failures as learning.
Model openness.

Punishing failure kills innovationWhere mistakes are held against people, staff play it safe and stop innovating. Make it safe to try and fail, encourage experimentation, and treat failures as learning.

Adapt it

All leaders: the same.
All settings: psychological safety, encourage experimentation, failures as learning, model openness.

Participant handout

One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

K12 Academics · Professional Learning

Fostering Innovation: safe to try

Unlock creativity: psychological safety to try and fail, encouraged experimentation, failures as learning, modeled openness.

How I build psychological safety to try and fail:
How I actively encourage experimentation with support:
How I frame and treat failures as learning:
How I model openness and admit what did not work:
A way to foster innovation this term:

Make it stick

Safe to try:

Create the safety for innovation.
Treat failure as learning.
Bring an innovation-fostering step to the leadership team.

Common questions

How do I get staff to innovate and try new things?

Mostly by making it safe. Where failure is punished, people play it safe. Build psychological safety, encourage experimentation, frame failures as learning, and give permission, time, and support to try things.

What about when experiments fail?

Genuinely treat failures as learning, not as something held against people. If failure is punished, innovation stops. Learning from both successes and failures is the point.

What's the leader's role?

Build safety, actively encourage new ideas, frame and treat failures as learning, give permission and support to experiment, and model your own openness and willingness to admit what did not work.