Reigniting Innovation Culture at Dementia Care Startup Tembo Health

Project Overview

Tembo Health, an AgeTech Collaborative™ from AARP portfolio company, experienced rapid growth in its early years that led to a shift in strategy. With this evolution came cultural friction, where innovation began to feel siloed and limited to certain teams. Concerned that this was stifling creativity and new ideas, Tembo Health engaged the AgeTech Collaborative Design Thinking team to reinvigorate its culture of innovation and empower staff at all levels to contribute to future-forward thinking.

To support Tembo Health’s evolving needs, the project was centered around two key objectives:

1. 1. Understand the perceptions, barriers, and cultural dynamics that were limiting innovation across the organization. 
   2. Foster a culture where all team members feel empowered to contribute ideas and collaborate on innovation efforts.

Approach 

The Design Thinking team led a phased engagement to identify barriers and strengthen Tembo Health’s ability to generate and support new ideas across teams:

1. Discovery: Gauging Staff Perceptions

The Design Thinking team started by fielding an anonymous survey to understand how staff perceived innovation at Tembo Health and to surface potential challenges. While employees generally viewed the company as moderately innovative, hierarchy and unclear processes were cited as common obstacles to moving ideas forward.

2. Design: Shaping a Targeted Workshop

Based on the survey findings, the team developed a 5-hour in-person training workshop focused on aligning participants around a shared definition of innovation and introducing practical mindsets and behaviors that support creative thinking across roles.

3. Training: Introducing Core Innovation Behaviors

The workshop centered on four foundational innovation behaviors designed to challenge common habits and support a stronger innovation culture:

• • • Empathy–  Relating to and understanding the people you are creating for, their needs, and what drives their decisions.
    • Greenhousing–  Nurturing others’ ideas to help them grow until they are ready to be judged.
    • Freshness– Seeking new internal and external stimuli to disrupt thinking and help inspire new ideas.
    • Signaling– Setting clear expectations around the intent of the session and the required mindset, either expansive (open-minded) or reductive (evaluative).

Participants also received practical training on how to recognize and overcome common cognitive biases that can block innovation.

4. Practice: Applying Tools Through Hands-On Exercises

Through hands-on activities, role playing and case studies, participants were introduced to a suite of tools designed to support the innovation framework and reinforce the behaviors introduced during the session.

Outcomes

The training helped spark early shifts in how innovation was discussed and practiced across the Tembo Health team. Participants began using a shared language around innovation and demonstrated greater awareness of behaviors that support creative thinking. The session laid the groundwork for ongoing culture change by introducing practical tools and mindsets that staff could apply in their day-to-day work.