If the folklore of the company tends to link innovation to a creative force exclusively reserved for the most talented 1% of us or to generous R&D budgets, not many of us take into account the role played by the way we train teams or integrate an innovation process into the HR strategy that is open to all employees.
According to a 2013 study, 80% of employers around the world consider “cultural fit” - the most suitable employees share the same way of thinking as the team they will be a part of - as a priority factor when it comes to employment. Professionals at all levels admit to being interested in hiring people they like to talk to and they would see themselves develop a close relationship with. And recruiters have a habit of asking candidates about their hobbies and what they like to do in their spare time during the selection process, in order to build harmonious teams who would enjoy spending time together as much as possible.
We tend to believe that similar people work better together. However, this rule doesn't apply when it comes to innovation. Decades of research from an organizational, psychological or economic point of view have shown that socially diverse groups are more innovative than homogeneous groups. Too much similarity leads to blockages in exchanging different ideas and prevents us from seeing anything that doesn't fit the cultural baggage that all members have in common.
True innovation thrives in an inclusive culture that values diversity, draws value from each member's unique perspectives, and invites everyone to collaborate within the organization.

Research confirms that diversity is an invaluable and irreplaceable resource for innovation. A study by Prof. Ron Burt of the University of Chicago found that people with more diverse sources of information consistently generate better ideas than those who only come into contact with similar people. Employees who are fairly insular as far as their internal relations are concerned (at the right of the graph) - those who only connect with their closest colleagues - have the least innovative ideas because they lack diversity in their daily lives.

The vertical axis shows the management team's assessments of ideas for improving the supply chain management process proposed by employees. The horizontal axis measures the level of diversity of the employee's relationships.
Burt's research results indicate that the greater the diversity of interactions, the more willing employees are to perceive and single out better ideas around them, a critical component of organizational innovation.

For a boost of innovation, an outsider should be brought into the team

Tony McCaffrey, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts who has reviewed several thousand inventions that have marked our history, is amazed at the amount of good ideas we simply ignore because of the strict model the language and the culture we belong to are imposing on us. Moving away from existing conceptual categories and importing solutions from other fields is essential for innovation, he says.
His research shows that about 90% of new solutions in any area are adaptations of other solutions that already exist - and are imported from areas outside of the expertise of the person who needs to solve the initial problem.

Innovate Avon - an innovation project, successfully implemented by Co-Factor in 19 European countries

"I would like to thank the entire Co-Factor team for providing an excellent service for the development and implementation of the Avon Innovate platform for the collaborative innovation process, as well as for tailoring it to our needs to ensure the highest level of User Experience and functionalities necessary to facilitate the management and development of innovative ideas within Avon Central Europe.
We entered into this 5-year collaboration with Co-Factor because, among the numerous offers we had received from potential sellers, Co-Factor not only offered us a complete and flexible solution, with the possibility of adapting it to all our requests, but also a solid expertise in the field and a team ready to meet all our functional and quality needs. All these arguments convinced us to choose Co-Factor as a partner for our strategic project which covers all the 19 markets we operate on in Central Europe.
Maciej Starzyk, CE Strategy Manager – Avon Cosmetics