Gone are the days where to really make an impact in your career, you had to prove yourself to be the best worker out there. While having a strong work ethic and the determination to accomplish any task that you’re given are always important regardless of the business you’re talking about, these principles have been superseded in recent years by something more important: innovation.

According to a study conducted by Fast Company.com, employers are increasingly looking not at the surface-level work histories of applicants when hiring new employees, but at their history of innovation. Employers want critical thinkers because critical thinkers don’t just get the job done – they flip the job on its head and do it in a way better than anyone ever has before.

If you really want to use this idea to your advantage and lay the foundation for positive growth in terms of your career, it isn’t good enough to just think outside the box. You have to “live outside the box”.

Innovation and Your Career

Life is full of unpredictability. Emphasizing innovation throughout all aspects of your life doesn’t just make you more adept at dealing with change – it allows you to embrace change. It allows you to go beneath the surface of a situation and take anything you find, good or bad, and turn it into something that can help propel you forward.

If you’ve developed a reputation as an innovator, you instantly make yourself more valuable in most businesses because “innovation” and “saving money” are synonyms. Being an innovator means that you can use limited resources combined with your passion, your drive, and the sheer force of your creativity to not just solve a problem, but to accomplish something.

Innovation: Bringing it All Back Together Again

Innovators bring true value to a situation or environment. They’re not followers. They’re leaders. If you can truly train yourself to think with an eye towards innovation in everything you do, you’re creating the type of situation in your career where the definition of “success” doesn’t matter, as it will always be well within arm’s reach.

These are just a few of the reasons why making a constant effort to live “outside the box” is so important. In the short-term, it makes you a much more valuable employee who is able to solve challenges, and allows you to come up with creative solutions that allow a business to stand apart from the competition and more. In the long-term, it makes YOU a much more valuable commodity. By creating a situation where innovation is built into your very instincts, it teaches you how to naturally use ANYTHING that life may throw at you to your advantage.

As a business leader, one of the core requirements of your job is to make sure that you’re bringing out the absolute best in your team at all times. Every employee working under you not only needs to excel on their own terms but must also be contributing towards the larger whole at the same time. Having quiet, introverted employees can certainly make this difficult, but therein lies the challenge. If you want to use your leadership skills to bring out the best from your introverted employees, you’ll certainly want to keep a few key things in mind.

Work on Your Pace

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in terms of dealing with introverted employees is trying to force them to adapt to the way you like to work. Introverted employees typically don’t like fast-paced, high-stress situations. They need time to think, to plan, and to ultimately prepare for the task ahead. Part of the way you can help bring out the best in these employees involves embracing this idea wherever possible.

Say you’ve got a big meeting coming up and you know that an introverted employee will need to contribute as much as possible. Instead of springing this on them at the last minute, let them know as soon as possible. Give them time to get their thoughts straight and make sure you give them a clear, actionable agenda to work from. If you allow them to build up to the meeting, you’ll find that they’ll be much more engaged than you probably thought they would.

Acknowledge Accomplishments

One of the most important things to keep in mind about introverted employees is that they will rarely, if ever, take outward pride in their own accomplishments. They typically don’t like attention, even if it’s positive, which means that a lot of the hard work they’ve been doing will likely go unnoticed. As a result, it becomes your job to take pride in those accomplishments for them. If an introverted employee absolutely nails a project, make sure everyone on the team knows it. Make the announcement on their behalf, allowing them to feel great while embracing their personality at the same time. Just make sure you spread the love – all team member accomplishments should be acknowledged equally, both for introverts, extroverts, and everyone in between.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Another factor to consider about introverted employees ultimately comes down to communication. An introvert doesn’t necessarily like to keep in constant contact either in person or by phone, but luckily, technology has made it easier than ever to adapt to this idea. Utilize virtual communication for projects when possible, either via text messages to your team or instant messaging conversations, e-mail threads and more. This will allow your introverted employees to not only contribute to a larger project but to do so in an environment they feel the most comfortable in.

Remember that just because someone is quiet and prefers to work in a solitary environment does NOT mean that they aren’t contributing. In the same way, a loud, boisterous attitude doesn’t make someone a good employee either. Your primary goal is to strike a balance. You need to provide ALL employees, regardless of their personality type, exactly what they need to thrive.

Whether you’ve been in business for 40 years, or you are a startup waiting for the perfect time to enter the marketplace, you want to know how to succeed in the fast-paced world of capturing market share. Let’s see how your business can benefit from the lessons learned in the daily life of a salty sailor.

Sailors are known for their exciting tales of far-off worlds and adventure beyond a landlubber’s imagination. The trusted captain and crew have a few pointers to share for a successful voyage.

Know your vessel.

Is she seaworthy? Is she built and maintained by people who take pride in their work? What are her quirks? Not all vessels are the same by any means. Know what makes her unique and tend to those details. What is the greatest strength of your enterprise? What is your core competency, or what is the distinguishing feature of your product? Having a well-defined product or service and a good understanding of how it compares to similar items in the marketplace is crucial.

Choose a good crew.

Your crew will make or break the voyage, and as the captain, all the responsibility is resting on you. Is the "crew" of your "vessel" the best in the business, or did you hire your brother’s high school best friend out of some misplaced sense of obligation? You have to constantly assess the skill and knowledge of your crew. Do you have the right people stationed at the right post? Just as you wouldn’t put a deckhand in charge of navigation, you must insist on having all of your staff working in the areas of their expertise.

Know where you’re going.

As a sailor, you must always be aware of your latitude and longitude. You have to know where you are in order to chart a course to where you want to go. The tools available today are changing rapidly and technology is great, but do not lose sight of the basics: quality, consistency, value, and customer service. Knowing where you are in these key areas and how you stack up to the competition will allow you to get where you want to go, be it increased market share, growth, innovation, or profitability.

Sharpen your senses.

The wind will change direction and velocity and make your life terrible if you aren’t in tune with Mother Nature. The same goes for rain, thunderstorms, and squalls. Know what conditions are in the forecast, but always keep watch to discern subtle changes and patterns. Business journals and analysts are out there making predictions and it can be hard to figure out who has the best information. Sharpen your senses and your gut will guide you in the direction of success. Look at the forecast, but know that your gut is rarely wrong.

Know how to adjust your sails.

When the wind changes direction or a storm system builds, sailors understand that they’ll make no progress fighting the forces of nature. They know that by simply adjusting their sails, they can harness those forces, adjust their course, and continue on. They may even adjust their destination to make the most of the situation. Similarly, a leader of any enterprise must know how to adjust his plans to accommodate changes in the market. Market forces can be infinitely stronger than your iron will and can crush your business if you fight. If you accept the change and adjust your course, you may find yourself in a different place from where you intended to go, and it may be far better than you expected.

Whether you are a captain on the high seas or a captain of industry, you old salts have a lot in common. Next time you are in a pub near the marina, strike up a conversation with the weather-worn sailor in the corner. You just might learn something.