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Play 4: Seek Affordable Solutions (Leadership)
Innovative leaders know that the most creative ideas can simplify or streamline solutions to current problems, and this approach can often lead to a reduction in expenditures. They also know that it can be challenging to identify funding to support these endeavors, but with an eye toward creativity and ingenuity, the organization can be successful.
Understand the Various Levels of Innovation
Innovative leaders
- Do not equate big dollars with big innovation. Use an innovative plan to ensure that the entire airport-particularly its governing body-is educated about innovation. Reveal that innovation does not have to involve huge capital expenditures (e.g., innovation can be as simple as taking the time to come up with a cost-cutting effort or make a slight change in a work process, which in turn may have cascading effects).
- Find new revenue-generating prospects. Use an innovative plan to explain how innovation can result in the development of new revenue streams in addition to reducing operational costs. Quantifying savings and demonstrating new money sources can be compelling arguments that can help create buy-in for innovation. Balance cost-cutting ideas with new product or service ideas that produce new streams of revenue. Both can work at the same time, which will keep the airport looking forward.
- Repurpose salaries. Focus on making the current workforce innovative within the job function that staff are already being paid to perform. Provide training and mentorship on how to identify improvements to the processes they perform, as well as those of their business function.
Get Creative About Budgeting Innovation
Innovative leaders
- Know the buck doesn't stop here. Demonstrate that an innovation budget does not always mean line items for new hires or investments in technology or new facilities. Also note that the innovation budget does not need to be specific to one particular idea. Tie innovation to various individual project budgets in small, incremental investments. Or spread costs among various projects to make innovation affordable, setting a precedent for including these types of costs in future budgets.
- Let partnerships fuel the fire. Recognize opportunities to seek inventive partnerships to shore up potential funding gaps. Public-private partnerships are the new buzzword, but they do not have to be huge endeavors in order to be successful. Simple partnerships with local start-ups, universities, or other innovation leaders in the community can spark a creative arrangement that drives innovation for both parties. Consider an innovation lab with a local university, or a think tank with other entrepreneurs, or even a pilot program within an airport ecosystem. The opportunity to ideate with others can be both gratifying and just the spark a team needs.
