In Praise of Brilliant Failure
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Be bold! Make mistakes! This was the command from the new chief executive of a well-known British retailer to his managers some years ago, just as the company's share price was crashing and its sales were slumping. Not surprisingly, they resisted. The company had a history of not tolerating failure. How could managers possibly become risk-takers overnight? In the end they had no choice but to obey. The result? They were all fired the minute they made a mistake.
I suspect that this happens a great deal in companies. As Bob Sutton has pointed out in his recent columns on success and failure, companies rarely embrace failure. Managers are often simply too busy to reflect on setbacks or learn from their mistakes. They are also programmed in the language of success: continuous improvement, total quality, or performance management are much more resonant than ideas of mistakes or failure. But that means that failure -- and the associated fear, shame, and embarrassment -- is driven underground. Why do companies keep up the pretense that it’s good to fail, and quickly point the finger of blame when mistakes are made?
I only ask because I recently met a man who has a mission to celebrate failure -- or rather, brilliant failure -- on equal terms with success. Paul Iske, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at ABN AMRO, the Dutch bank, is the founder of the splendidly named Institute of Brilliant Failures. He set up the institute when he realized that the bank was routinely turning away gifted entrepreneurs whose ideas had failed, often through no fault of their own. "There is no innovation without failure, and no failure without innovation,” says Iske. “And there is a huge difference between people failing through stupidity and failing because they had a brilliant idea whose timing or circumstances were wrong.”
Iske thinks that as the world becomes more complex, more things can go wrong. Companies and organizations must accept that failure is normal and that swift punishment is not always necessary. In order to raise the level of debate about failure, he has set out some criteria for brilliant failure (where a great idea failed through circumstances, rather than merit):
• There must be an intention to create value (in an organization or society)
• The failure must not be due to a stupid mistake
• There must be some learning
• There must be an inspiring story
It is a truism that every failure contains a lesson. Sometimes, the lesson is obvious: take a new direction, a different approach, or give up. But there are more subtle lessons, too. Failure broadens your thinking; it highlights problems in processes, and it is often necessary because unmitigated success can breed complacency.
Failure is also a critical route to innovation. If companies want to become more innovative and develop, attract, and retain truly innovative thinkers, they must allow and even encourage failure. But there is a tension inherent in this approach, as British author and consultant Charles Leadbeater has described in the “innovation dilemma”:
• Innovation sounds exciting, but it can be painful and prone to failure (managers know they have to do it, but hate the idea of it)
• Innovation requires constructive open challenge (but being a manager means being in charge)
• Innovation starts with admitting ignorance (but being a manager means knowing the answer)
• Innovation requires borrowing [ideas] and humility (but managers hate admitting someone else knows better)
How open are you to failure? Does your company have the culture and processes to learn from failure? If so, what have you learned? Has your company become more innovative and developed as a learning organization as a result?
HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE RECOMMENDS:
The Right Kind of Failure (HMU Article)
The Failure-Tolerant Leader (HBR Article)
Inspiring Innovation (HBR Article)
The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes (HBR Article)
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Gill Corkindale is an executive coach and writer based in London. She works with managers and leaders from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East to develop strategies for business effectiveness and personal change. Formerly management editor of the Financial Times, she uses her journalistic skills and business insights to bring a new perspective on global management and leadership.
Comments
Any leader, in any field - business, politics, even the military - must encourage debate while, at the same time, retain authority. There are huge differences in the cultures of a bank, a government department and an army regiment but leaders in each must inspire while, at the same time, command respect and loyalty. Effective leaders want their people to have the confidence to experiment, to take justifiable, calculated risks, and will reward those who do, even if they fail occasionally. Mediocre leaders think spirited debate is dissent. Their teams are chronically cautious and unimaginative. The result is mediocrity, or worse.
- Posted by patrick harman
June 24, 2007 5:54 PM
Charles Leadbeater sums up the problem well.I encouraged my team to challenge me but some of my peers thought this was an abrogation of leadership. One colleague warned me that my approach was seen as undermining the corporate hierarchy. Reluctantly I had to revert to the methods of traditional management. This was a pity as I felt my methods made for happier and more productive staff. Only when companies realise leadership is about intelligent delegation will staff fulfil their potential - with the subsequent benefits to productivity.
- Posted by marianne
June 25, 2007 12:37 PM
Paul Iske took the challenge, cause his profile as CKO allowed him to to examine at close quarters, the thrills and spills of failure. 3M's post-it is a sterling example of being a brilliant failure.
While Organisations can tolerate failure/ failures, individuals cannot due to the relatively short review cycle of appraisal. Imagine if a project of mine which took ten months to get off the floor and did not work came up for review? This is also the motive that prevents people from taking risks; simply put, cause the risk was too high.
Some organisations, Google prominently allow employees to work on personal projects. It allows them to stretch the boundaries of conventional/ documented thinking and look outside the box and they are not being judged....
What is strange, is that after a major failure, the guy(that includes you ladies also) gets sacked, looks for another job and like a dog after a bone, makes it a point to improve upon the mistakes and maybe even make it a success. Wright brothers is a case in point as is Edison. The organisation on the other hand, is relegates the entire effort to the background, never to be revived, or draw lessons from, or incorporate the causes of failure as part of a operating procedures, thus reducing the probability of failure.
Paul Iske has done just that. He's managed to create a database of Brilliant Failures, that ABN AMRO couldn't or rather still wouldn't want to deal with. The truth was staring Paul in the face all the time. The Institute of Brilliant Failures is the name for this truth.
The Road Ahead: As an OD practice, organisations should encourage, employees to test their hypotheses in the form of pilot projects the results of which may not be judged for profits but for the sheer Human Capital they generate. Profits, if any should be a bonus. Also, it creates a workforce, that becomes a stronger team, doesn't wait for the proverbial "Thank God It's Friday" and can weather many a storm.
- Posted by Mayank Bhardwaj
June 26, 2007 6:09 AM
What of those companies which have expanded into countries where personal initiative was once dangerous or into developing nations where indigenous culture has discouraged individualism? It is that much harder to foster an atmosphere where innovative thinking is the norm and failure is not penalised. Here companies must proceed cautiously and with sensitivity. Often we must adapt Western management styles to local conditions.
- Posted by hamish mcintyre
June 26, 2007 7:06 AM
Dear Ms. Corkindale:
At the outset, it's a nice article I read in recent time on innovation.
I liked your concept of taking risks for innovations. However if we have analytical mind to critically analyse the problems while innovating and then keeping our mind open to accept the suggestions to arrive at the best possible solution. Again over here the person has to have ability to think parallely to go through each idea (from his/her own or from somebody else) and then select the best ones.
If somebody has a approach like this, may be there will be more innovations than failures.
Regards
Chandrashekhar S. Joshi
- Posted by Chandrashekhar S. Joshi
June 27, 2007 3:39 PM
Gill,
I am very late in discovering this post. I am a bit of a student of failure in the workplace. I have a site called The Mistake Bank (http://www.mistakebank.com) where people tell stories of failure and error in their lives. I'd love your feedback on the site if you have a chance to visit.
regards, John
- Posted by John Caddell
July 17, 2008 10:36 AM