To begin the innovation process in your company, consider these common barriers to innovation:

1. Lock-in. “Lock-in” describes an organization’s dogged commitment to business models, products, behaviors, processes and perceived benefits. Lock-in is beneficial because its standard operating procedures create efficiency within a company and drives growth as long as the success formula is working. However, when the market changes, rigid adherence to lock-in will stifle innovation and sink a company.
2. Defend and extend management. This is a practice of defending core values, procedures, services, products and customers, and seeking incremental opportunities to grow by extending those cores.  Practitioners of defend and extend management view innovations as threats and are often late to adapt to market changes.

Successful innovation requires that your company promote and adapt to those things the marketplace rewards. Here’s a four-step strategy to drive innovation within your company and industry:

1. Stop defend and extend strategies. Instead of focusing on core products, core services, core markets, core business practices and core technologies, which seems the natural thing to do, focus on future scenarios. Scenario planning can identify innovations and their future value.
2. Attack competitors’ lock-in. Focusing on competitors’ lock-in shows how to put them at risk, and it also surfaces your own lock-in situation and how to manage it. You can find new innovations and the incentive to develop them by attacking your competitors’ lock-in.  Nothing helps to motivate your team like attacking an arch-nemesis with a new plan.
3. Create Disruptions. When launching an innovation, it’s critical to create internal disruptions which overturn old lock-ins. Disruptions are not problems caused by market changes. Disruptions are internally generated decisions to attack lock-in and reassess the status quo.
4. Create and maintain “white space.” Innovators must have their own place/space and mandate to develop new success formulas, aligned with new market requirements.  They must have permission to operate outside of and even violate corporate lock-ins.  And they need sufficient resources of manpower and money, even if this means taking some of the budget from the traditional business.

All companies can adapt to today’s changing markets.  Although in tough times the gut reaction may be to “protect the core,” it is innovation which leads to long-term sales growth and higher profits.  Those who move quickly to adopt innovation, becoming part of the market shift, will come out stronger and more successful.

Vistage published the well received article 15 Interview Questions that Uncover Talent. Many readers asked for more information on how to interpret the answers that a candidate might give to these questions. The authors have expanded the original article to include answer interpretations.

What question do you have for me right away? Look for preparation, substantial questions, focus, poise, and the ability to think on ones feet. This question allows you to show you’re wanting to have a dialogue.

What would really surprise me about you? What else? This question allows candidates to reveal a different side of themselves. Look for confidence, willingness and candor. The second question (“What else?”) gives the candidate another chance to reveal more if they gave a conservative first response.

What’s your real motivation to change jobs? No, the real reason? Look for motives other than money–money is rarely the real reason. See if the candidate places blame; is seeking asylum elsewhere; can’t handle the pressure, the boss or the pace. These are signs of immaturity, poor-decision making skills or lack of true selling ability. Ask the question to check to see if you’re hearing the whole story.

What’s your philosophy on goal setting? The more detailed answer you get, the more you’ll see if the candidate values setting and achieving goals. Ask for examples of goals they have set and how they measured them. A blend of intrinsic and extrinsic goals will show emotional balance and another sign of maturity in prioritizing ability.

What reading material would I find on your coffee table, nightstand or kitchen table? The answer to this question will show intellect, curiosity, variety of interests, breath of life experience, dedication to learning, or lack of these traits. The candidate’s response will give insights as to how well he or she follows your industry and field of work.

Tell me a story about when you were placed in an ethical dilemma and what happened? This question reveals morals, ethics, integrity and problem-solving skills. If the candidate places blame on others, it may indicate tendencies towards poor judgment, unrealistic attitudes, non-genuine or secretive personality.

How did you earn money while in college? This question offers a good indicator of the candidate’s entrepreneurial skills. If they ran a formal or informal business in college, they are most likely resourceful, driven, have strong social skills and street smarts. These candidates tend to be good at sales, marketing, customer service or other roles that require proactive behaviors.

How far away from home have you traveled? (Have a map on your desk.) Allows for storytelling with better visuals and allows person to share travels and gives you insights into drive, personal interests and how well they communicate outside of business issues. Can show more about risk-taking, social and cultural differences and ability to travel safely and effectively for work.

Draw me a pie chart showing how you spend an eight-hour day. Watch for organization, clear communications and accurate calculations. Their response shows you their presentation and communication skills. Are those skills in line with what you need?

Are you a curious person, and if so, show me an example? The example they give shows you how well they can communicate, persuade, sell, entertain or motivate others. Also, is their curiosity connected to their drive and need to win or to something else?

What’s your favorite success story and failure story? A person willing to share failures tends to be self-confident, mature and has a sense of true self and place in the world. In success stories, look for credit given to team effort and personal drive in relation to goal setting. Bragging of solo efforts may suggest arrogance, inflated sense of self, lack of self-confidence or lack of interest in being a team player.

What should I have asked you that I haven’t? This question allows the candidate to respond by closing and asking for the job or to address hidden concerns of their ability to do the job.

Do you want to be a millionaire? Why? What are you doing to prepare for it? Look for an overall balanced approach to wealth and lifestyle choice and for consistency relative to other questions around goal setting. Does the candidate have a valid, compelling motive for a yes or no to wealth accumulation?

Are you ready to resign from your job in five days? What will your firm do when you quit? What will they say about you after you have left the company? The answers here show the seriousness and commitment of the candidate. A person committed to changing jobs will not hesitate when asked if they’re ready to resign. If the candidate presents a counteroffer, tell him/her that you do not believe in the success of counteroffers and that you will not negotiate against a counteroffer.

Have you ever created a 30, 60, 90-day strategic plan? If the candidate has created strategic plans, how many months were they required to plan out into the future? Is this commensurate with the requirements of position you’re offering? Ask about a specific plan and watch for ability to articulate and define time frames and goals. Many people can speak about planning, so ask candidate to illustrate the plan using visual aids, graphs, charts, etc.

Here are six things CEOs and other business leaders can take away about human motivation and creating an effective path to high performance from his most recent book, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.”

1. Create Environments for Needs to Flourish Humans have three innate psychological needs – competence, autonomy and relatedness. By targeting your motivational tactics to activities that yield more “inherent satisfaction with the activity itself” – intrinsic motivation, creativity, self-direction, and genuine motivation – your employees will not only be more satisfied, but will contribute more to your company.
2. Creativity The strongest driver of a person being excited and motivated to participate in a project is how creative a person feels when working on that project – “enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation.” The best example of this is the new dynamic of open-source projects. To capitalize on creativity, businesses should think about optimizing their model to allow for more creative work flow.
3. “Renaissance of Self-Direction” Traditional management is not working as well as it used to. People’s basic nature is to be autonomous, curious and self-directed – new management styles should focus on a “renaissance of self-direction.” By giving your people autonomy over their time and how they accomplish things, it encourages them to contribute rather than to just show up, and often gets better results than a “traditional” model.
4. Genuine Motivation The single greatest motivator is making progress in one’s work. By creating conditions for people to make progress – and by recognizing and celebrating progress – organizations will encourage their employees to be more creative, more driven, and to achieve a state of “flow” that results in better work product.
5. Rewards Can De-Motivate Counter-intuitively, rewards (and punishments) often give rise to negative behavior. Rewards narrow a person’s focus – which can be useful for solutions to which there is a clear path, but harmful for projects that require creativity and broad thinking – that “intrinsic motivation” that really drives behavior.
6. Infuse the Mundane with Deeper Purpose Words are important. Do your employees identify with the goals of the company? Do they know WHY they are doing what they are doing? By giving your employees a deeper sense of purpose, you make it more likely that they will work efficiently towards them. Identify those goals in terms of words like “honor” and “truth” rather than “efficiency” and “value.” By humanizing the work, you humanize what your employees do.

Mark Twain may have said it best: “that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” By recognizing how your employees think, you can structure your company so that your employees not only work towards its ultimate goal – but work smarter, more creatively and are motivated to achieve on a daily basis.