Richard Bran­son

When the great ad­ven­tur­er George Mal­lo­ry was asked why he want­ed to climb Ever­est, he replied: "Be­cause it is there."

It is with this at­ti­tude of ex­plo­ration that an en­tre­pre­neur should launch a busi­ness. To achieve any­thing, you have to want to break new ground.

What­ev­er sec­tor your com­pa­ny is in, you should al­ways keep an eye on your com­pe­ti­tion: what they are not do­ing well, you should do it bet­ter. But what will ex­cite and de­light your cus­tomers is if you of­fer some­thing com­plete­ly new and rev­o­lu­tion­ary.

Among the Vir­gin busi­ness­es, Vir­gin Galac­tic is the ob­vi­ous ex­am­ple of a com­pa­ny that has achieved this, as we are lit­er­al­ly reach­ing new heights in the com­mer­cial space in­dus­try.

The dri­ve to build a chal­lenger brand comes from a team's in­nate de­sire to push the bound­aries. One of the best ways for an en­tre­pre­neur or man­ag­er to go about spark­ing these in­no­v­a­tive ideas among em­ploy­ees is to or­gan­ise con­tests or go af­ter prizes. They un­leash peo­ple's com­pet­i­tive in­stincts and give them the im­pe­tus to go the ex­tra mile.

Our de­ci­sion to launch Vir­gin Galac­tic was part­ly in­spired by the Ansari X Prize. When the en­gi­neer Burt Ru­tan safe­ly launched Space­ShipOne, his reusable manned space­craft, in­to space a sec­ond time, he proved that he had solved the prob­lems in­volved. We asked him to de­sign our space­craft, Space­ShipT­wo.

When prizes are linked to won­der­ful caus­es, they can of­ten be es­pe­cial­ly mo­ti­vat­ing for a team. This has def­i­nite­ly been the case with the Vir­gin Earth Chal­lenge, which I've men­tioned in this col­umn: a US$25 mil­lion re­ward to any­one who in­vents a scal­able, sus­tain­able way of re­mov­ing green­house gas­es from the at­mos­phere. Some cli­mate change ex­perts say that if we were able to ex­tract the equiv­a­lent of Eu­rope's to­tal car­bon emis­sions year­ly, we could main­tain the Earth's tem­per­a­ture at its cur­rent lev­el in­def­i­nite­ly. While the judges have not yet found a win­ner, a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty of en­trants has sprung up that is dri­ving in­no­va­tion.

I was de­light­ed to serve as a judge re­cent­ly on the Google Glob­al Im­pact Chal­lenge, where we award­ed four non­prof­its grants of �500,000 each, along with tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance from Google, for projects that will use tech­nol­o­gy to tack­le the world's tough­est prob­lems. (So­larAid, for ex­am­ple, is in­tent on erad­i­cat­ing the pol­lut­ing and ex­pen­sive kerosene lamp in Africa by 2020.) I am al­so chair­ing the ju­ry for the an­nu­al Post­code Lot­tery Green Chal­lenge, which awards 500,000 eu­ros to the en­tre­pre­neur who presents the best prod­uct or ser­vice that re­duces green­house gas­es. It has been great to see how, for young com­pa­nies start­ing out, the en­cour­age­ment of a well-known or­gan­i­sa­tion can be a huge ben­e­fit (though, of course, the fi­nan­cial re­wards cer­tain­ly help, too!)

Both of these prizes have their roots in the Lon­gi­tude Prize, which is cel­e­brat­ing its 300th an­niver­sary next year. It was set up by the British gov­ern­ment in 1714 as a re­ward for who­ev­er could come up with a sim­ple way to pin­point a ship's lon­gi­tude. In­spired by this sto­ry, British of­fi­cials re­cent­ly an­nounced a new con­test ask­ing en­trants to de­ter­mine the great­est chal­lenge fac­ing hu­man­i­ty to­day, and then, once that ques­tion is set­tled, of­fer­ing �1 mil­lion to who­ev­er in­vents a so­lu­tion. The idea is an un­usu­al one, but its wide scope could be a mas­ter­stroke. If a prob­lem seems to be un­solv­able, set­ting up a con­test can be a cat­a­lyst to in­no­va­tion.

But re­wards should not just be re­served for peo­ple who win glob­al com­pe­ti­tions. To en­cour­age the every­day in­no­va­tion that will keep your com­pa­ny a step ahead of its ri­vals, recog­nise your em­ploy­ees' achieve­ments by pro­vid­ing dai­ly en­cour­age­ment and help, and al­so prizes that they can aim for in the long term. At Vir­gin, our peo­ple work to­ward in­di­vid­ual goals, and there are in­cen­tives con­nect­ed to them. Out­stand­ing em­ploy­ees are cel­e­brat­ed at our an­nu­al Stars of the Year din­ner. There are team goals and re­wards, too–achiev­ing some­thing as a group can be far more sat­is­fy­ing and pro­duc­tive than do­ing so on your own. What prizes can you of­fer that will spark your staff's cre­ativ­i­ty?

If you're launch­ing a start­up or want to bring some new life to your es­tab­lished busi­ness, take a look around at the var­i­ous prizes on of­fer and con­sid­er en­ter­ing some com­pe­ti­tions. The recog­ni­tion your com­pa­ny could gain from win­ning an im­por­tant or in­ter­est­ing prize could make your team and busi­ness soar.

And if you don't win? Well, you'll have fun try­ing, and isn't that the point?

(Richard Bran­son is the founder of the Vir­gin Group and com­pa­nies such as Vir­gin At­lantic, Vir­gin Amer­i­ca, Vir­gin Mo­bile and Vir­gin Ac­tive. He has re­cent­ly pub­lished two books: Screw Busi­ness as Usu­al and Like a Vir­gin. He main­tains a blog at www.vir­gin.com/richard-bran­son/blog. You can fol­low him on Twit­ter at twit­ter.com/richard­bran­son. To learn more about the Vir­gin Group: www.vir­gin.com.)

(Ques­tions from read­ers will be an­swered in fu­ture columns. Please send them to Richard.Bran­son@)ny­times.com. Please in­clude your name, coun­try, e-mail ad­dress and the name of the Web site or pub­li­ca­tion where you read the col­umn.)

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