Innovation is crucial to every organization’s growth. You can’t just demand it, however; you have to create an environment where it will flourish. As you work with your team on new ideas, don’t forget these three key ingredients to successful creative thinking:

• Tension – You don’t want constant disagreements, but every team needs a mixture of different viewpoints and experiences to generate new ideas. If everyone agrees on every issue and approach, you won’t get the kind of breakthrough thinking you need.
• Agility – You and your team need to be able to adapt quickly to both opportunities and setbacks. Keep an open mind as you explore and implement your ideas. Be ready to make changes to keep up with unexpected developments, fresh concepts, and even failure.
• Decisiveness – You debate, test, and adjust your ideas, but your team needs to be able to commit to a specific direction. Determine up front how you’ll decide which projects to back and when to pull away. If you’re constantly in the experimental phase, you’ll never get the results your organization is depending on.