In Part 1 of this series, we focused on the Customer Experience (CX) side of innovation—how building trust, crafting memorable interactions, and creating emotional connection with your customers forms the foundation of a truly innovative business.

But innovation doesn't stop at the front door. To make it sustainable, scalable, and culture-driven, you need to train the other half of the muscle group: your Employee Experience (EX).

In this second part of Building Your Innovativeness Muscles, we turn our focus inward—to your people. Because real innovation isn’t just led by leadership—it’s lived by your teams every day.

Through the lens of the Stratascension Innovativeness Leadership Framework, we’ll explore how to:

Use communication as a powerful engagement tool
See your team members beyond their job descriptions
Empower employees with the responsibility and authority to lead innovation from where they stand

This is your EX workout plan—a strategic, repeatable routine to build an organization where innovation becomes not just an idea, but a daily discipline.

Part 2: Training for EX—The EX Innovativeness Training Workout Plan

If Customer Experience (CX) is your endurance training—keeping your business agile, responsive, and connected to the market—then Employee Experience (EX) is your strength training. It’s the core foundation, the internal power source that gives your organization the stability, resilience, and capacity to innovate sustainably over time.

Where CX keeps you moving forward, EX ensures you don’t fall apart under the weight of growth, disruption, or transformation. Because the truth is this: you can’t lead innovation externally if you don’t cultivate it internally.

A highly engaged workforce doesn’t just support innovation—it fuels it from within. It’s your people, when empowered, who identify emerging problems before your competitors do. It’s your team, when trusted and equipped, who generate the breakthrough ideas that shape new products, services, and experiences. And it’s your culture, when intentionally built, that determines whether innovation becomes a moment—or a movement.

This is your call to train harder, think deeper, and lead smarter.

Immerse yourself fully in this innovative leadership training. Not just to check a box, but to transform the way you show up for your people—and how your people show up for your mission.

Because when leaders commit to building strength from the inside out, they don’t just create great companies.

They create companies that last.

Now’s the time to dig in and build your EX Innovativeness Training foundation. Let’s flex those leadership muscles and build the kind of culture where innovation becomes second nature.

1. Communications as a Tool for Engagement – Build Internal Strength

Just like strong muscles need clear signals from the nervous system, your team needs clear, open communication to perform at its best.

✅ Tactic: Implement a “Feedback Loop” System

Create a culture of continuous feedback (weekly check-ins, anonymous surveys, open forums).
Ensure leadership actively listens and acts on employee concerns.

✅ Tactic: Use “Storytelling Reps” to Reinforce Vision

Leaders should share real stories of employees demonstrating innovation.
Tie employee efforts to the company’s bigger mission to strengthen engagement.

🔹 Challenge: Are your employees crystal clear on how their work contributes to innovation?

2. Perception Beyond the Job Description – Flexibility & Functional Strength

Muscles aren’t useful if they’re stiff—employees shouldn’t be confined by rigid roles either.

✅ Tactic: The “Innovation Cross-Training” Method

Encourage employees to explore projects outside their core job descriptions to spark creativity.
Assign cross-functional innovation teams to tackle problems from fresh perspectives.

✅ Tactic: Empower Employees as Internal Innovators

Host quarterly “Shark Tank” innovation pitches where employees present ideas.
Reward experimental thinking, even if ideas don’t always work out.

🔹 Challenge: Do your employees feel empowered to contribute beyond their role?

3. Responsibility Along with Authority – Power & Performance Alignment

You can’t build strength without resistance. Employees need ownership to perform at their peak.

✅ Tactic: The “Ownership Mindset” Training

Give employees autonomy over specific initiatives.
Define clear outcomes but let them shape the process.

✅ Tactic: Adopt the “Coach Instead of Command” Approach

Leaders should act as coaches, not micromanagers.
Ask: How can I remove barriers to innovation instead of dictating solutions?

🔹 Challenge: Are your employees making decisions, or waiting for permission?

🏆 EX Workout Wrap-Up:

Strengthen communication flow to energize engagement.
Increase workplace flexibility to unlock creativity.
Build autonomous decision-making to drive innovation.

💡 Ready to Activate Innovation from Within?

Let’s turn employee experience into your innovation engine. Book an Innovation Strategy Session and get a custom plan to empower your team, strengthen your culture, and lead with purpose. 👉

Schedule Your Session Now >>

Final Takeaway: Your Innovativeness Training Plan

Building CX and EX muscles requires daily commitment. The key is consistency, not perfection.

💡 Action Plan for This Week:

✔ Choose one CX workout and apply it immediately.

✔ Choose one EX workout and implement it with your team.

✔ Track results and refine your strategy like a high-performance athlete.

🏆 Innovators aren’t born. They’re built. Start training today.

What’s your next move? Let us know in the comments! 🚀🔥

STRATASCENSION was founded on the notion that business is relational and growth is achieved through the deepening of all the micro connections between people, processes, tools, & performance. We want to help leaders enhance these connections and leverage them for transformation.

Employee Experience significantly influences Innovativeness

We are a Certified Partner with Predictive Index, the foremost leader in the Talent Optimization category. Our Innovativeness Leadership Framework combined with their platform and data offers clients an easy way to assess their culture and initiate innovativeness initiatives. Click here to schedule a chat to learn more.

Innovativeness Igniter Program

If you work with a team and you’d like to find out more about how Leadership Training can help you, then click here. Bring your energy and your questions, and we’ll bring the knowledge and expertise on innovation leadership principles that can help you and your team raise your Leadership Lid.

AUTOMATE TO BE GREAT!!

As a Keap Certified Partner, we leverage the power of automation to improve the innovativeness of consultants, speakers, coaches, trainers, and growth-minded entrepreneurs. Click here to learn more about adding this to your tech stack and get back time lost on those repetitive tasks.

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Building Your Innovativeness Muscles – Part 2: The EX Innovativeness Training Plan for Culture-Driven Innovation