Innovation Management:

Inspiring People

Freedom to Fail

The Highway to Success

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Empowered Employees (Metal):

• Innovators have freedom to experiment, fail, and begin again more intelligently... More

Noble Failure vs. Stupid Failure

Charles Schwab is a world's leading financial services firm. The company revolutionized the way stocks are bought and sold. David Pottruck, a former CEO of Charles Schwab, says: "The idea that failure is okay is ridiculous. I am not going to go around the company and reward someone for failing. But here at Schwab we differentiate between noble failure and stupid failure."... More

Failure as a Primary Vehicle for Success

Freedom to fail means a freedom to explore, venture, experiment and succeed in uncharted territory.

Failure provides a great learning opportunity and should be viewed as a very lifeblood of success. "If you give people freedom to innovate, the freedom to experiment, the freedom to succeed, then you must also give them the freedom to fail. According to Deepak Seethi of AT&T, the organization of tomorrow will demand mistakes and failures. It is only by trying lots of initiatives that we can improve our chances that one of them will be a star."²

The more you fail, the more you succeed. You learn from taking action, from your mistakes, from feedback, from getting going.

As Alfred P. Sloan, the man who made General Motors the largest and most successful and profitable industrial enterprise in the world, puts it: "Life itself is a process of trial and error... And those people who make no mistakes are those who make nothing."

All you do by not letting your people fail is postpone the growth of your business. Why? Because:

"Success comes from good judgment
Good judgment comes from experience
And experience, often, comes from bad judgment!"

– Tony Robbins

 Case in Point  Silicon Valley

What makes Silicon Valley so successful as the engine of high-tech growth is the Darwinian process of failure. Commentator and author Mike Malone puts it like this, 'Outsiders think of Silicon Valley as a success, but it is, in truth, a graveyard. Failure is Silicon Valley's greatest strength. Every failed product or enterprise is a lesson stored in the collective memory. We don't stigmatize failure, we admire it. Venture Capitalists like to see a little failure in the résumés of entrepreneurs.'²

 Case in Point  Wall-Mart

In his 10 Rules for Building a Business Success, Sam Walton, the Founder of Wall-Mart writes: "Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm – always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you.

Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"... More

References:

1. "The Power of Failure", Charles C. Manz

2. "Lateral Thinking Skills", Paul Sloane

3. "Fall in Love With Your Company", Jim Harris

4. "Inspiring Innovation", Ellen Peebles, Harvard Business Review on The Innovative Enterprise

5. "Extreme Management", Mark Stevens

6. "Coaching and Failure," Richard Winfield, Brefi Group Limited

7. "SMART Executive," Vadim Kotelnikov

8. "Strategies of Market Leaders," Vadim Kotelnikov

9. "SMART Innovation," Vadim Kotelnikov

10. "The Jazz of Innovation," Vadim Kotelnikov

11. "Managing Radical Innovation," Vadim Kotelnikov