When you should hire an innovation coach

As a professional, you know how important it is to innovate, not just to sustain relevance or stay ahead of the competition…but to keep learning, growing, adapting, and succeeding individually. To benefit from correctly applying the most promising innovation methods, mindsets, and approaches (and increase your chances of success), consider hiring an advisor or innovation coach. The coaching relationship is focused on you – and the coach with innovation practice expertise can provide you with not only important questions and blind-spot awareness, but also tools and resources to help you improve your innovation practice. Working with a coach on a regular basis can encourage creativity, collaboration, accountability, and needed action.

Let’s look into what innovation coaching is, how it differs from innovation workshops, and when you should consider hiring an innovation coach.

What is innovation coaching?

An innovation coach is a mentor who works with you individually on a remote basis or can come into your organization. The focus of the coaching session is on you, the challenge you’d like to address, and the action to take. Coaching sessions are laser-focused on your needs. The innovation coach listens and provides you with ongoing tools, resources, and support to help you fulfill your innovation and business goals. Innovation coaching will provide you with long-term support over a specified period of time.

Innovation workshops versus innovation coaching

Innovation workshops often refer to short, one-time sessions of innovation training that occur over a span of a few hours. In contract, innovation coaching will occur over multiple sessions for a longer period of time. Both innovation training and innovation coaching can provide you with tools, templates, and techniques to grow your innovation capability and results.

When should I hire an innovation coach?

You should consider hiring an innovation coach if you need long-term support in reaching your goals. If you are just starting with transforming your company or organization to be more innovative, coaching can provide continuous direction in your effort. However, if you are further along in your innovation efforts, consider hiring an innovation trainer. Trainers can build on your skills and provide you with new ways of thinking about your goals.

Although innovation coaching isn’t for every business, it can be incredibly helpful. This is especially if you need sustained support to improve practices across departments in your organization. Whether you are a small business or a large corporation, every company can benefit enabling creativity and collaboration to grow at work.

Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in an innovation coach and we can tap into our global network for someone that might be able to help. We can also share with you different types of coaching programs that may be beneficial.

For more resources and tips, check out our innovation and design thinking resource blog.

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