How do I get my team to actually innovate?

You want your team to innovate, but everything keeps sliding back to the safe and familiar. That is not because they lack ideas. It is because safe feels safe, and new feels risky. People default to what will not get them in trouble. If new ideas seem dangerous to try, they will always lose to the comfortable path, no matter how much you ask. The pull toward the familiar is usually about fear, not laziness. Somewhere, people have learned that sticking out or failing carries a cost. To get real innovation, you have to make the new path feel as safe as the old one. That means protecting people who try and fail, and celebrating attempts, not just wins. Notice what actually happens on your team when someone tries something different and it does not work. If there is any cost to them, that is your real problem, not their creativity. Remove that cost, protect the risk-takers openly, and you will see the safe default loosen. People innovate when it is finally safe to.