Building a culture where intrapreneurs are not afraid to fail is critical if you hope to be innovative. Here are some ideas to help create that environment
25. let's talk about 8 reasons why
legitimate mistakes can be
valuable
26. REASON 1
Fail regularly to ensure that
you keep striving
Failure occurs when you stretch / grow yourself, because you are out of
your comfort level. If you’re not failing, you’re likely not stretching.
Explicitly track (and record) your rate of personal failures. Ensure 1 meaty screw up per
quarter, or force yourself to move into personally uncharted waters.
27. REASON 2
Fail regularly so that you
continue to be surprised
Surprise is a key to innovation because it reveals opportunities. It also
stores valuable Return on Investment if you learn from it.
Seek out Failure and aggressively run retrospectives (post mortems). Celebrate what you learn
positively, widely, and publicly.
28. REASON 3
Fail regularly to keep an open
mind
We are biologically predisposed to calcify assumptions & shy from
cognitive dissonance. Shake things up before they can’t be dislodged.
Compose a list of 10 things that you believed 15 years ago, which you now know are false, or
at least, not quite right. Remember how sure you were.
29. REASON 4
Fail regularly so that you
remind the ego to stay
humble
The greatest danger of confidence is over confidence
Find and listen to the album “Nothing’s Shocking” by Jane’s Addiction. It has nothing to do
with this topic. It’s just a fraking good album.
30. REASON 5
Fail regularly so that you build
empathy for others who fail
Most people fear failure because of how they think others will see them.
It is peer pressure which makes us avoid what is innately good for us.
Look around for someone who is currently failing and give them a shoulder to lean on. No
questions asked. No judgements made.
31. REASON 6
Fail regularly so that you build
confidence in your resilience
One of the reasons that it was so hard to shave my head bald for the
Children’s Cancer Foundation Hair for Hope program was the worry that
it wouldn’t come back. It did.
Compose a list of 3 big mistakes you’ve made in your life thus far. Appreciate that you got
through them and that they are not nearly so dire years later.
32. REASON 7
Fail regularly to build practical
recovery skills so that you get
up faster & stronger next time
‘nuff said
Go back to the retrospective you ran for Reason #2 and analyse the process after the failure
rather than before. Identify 1 thing to improve with recovery next round.
33. REASON 8
Fail regularly so that failure
becomes less scary &
embarrassing
Once you train your brain to see failure as an opportunity, it will become
one
Find someone who has failed (and who may feel privately ashamed) and let them know
personally that it’s no big deal.
40. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
put in place a process to identify low-hanging opportunities where
failure is low cost & high return
41. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
do a bit of shot gunning with the results of the low-hanging fruit review.
Commission many small bets and let the dice roll
42. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
rewire your infrastructure/administration to support quick-iteration
(e.g.: annual budgets….really?!?!)
43. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
add "no-go" tollgates to avoid the basic human hard-wired tendency to
throw good money after bad
44. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
require business cases to identify minimum viable product features and
customer validation metrics from the start
45. PRACTICE 1
Iterate Faster & Smaller
define exit plans so that features (and applications) are designed for
easy decommission if they don't work
53. PRACTICE 3
Share & Learn from Failure
use a tool that helps you effectively share knowledge broadly – check
out Jive, or other Enterprise Social Networks
54. PRACTICE 3
Share & Learn from Failure
make sure all project leads learn how to effectively facilitate
retrospectives / post-mortems and make sure they do
58. PRACTICE 4
Habitually Challenge the
Status Quo
have a annual mechanism to challenge all wisdom that has stood for a
long time, especially during times of market disruption
60. PRACTICE 5
Hire & Train Sherlocks &
wackos
make sure to hire some folks who are good at forensics
61. PRACTICE 5
Hire & Train Sherlocks &
wackos
and a few oddball outliers to introduce randomness and surprise
62. SMART FAILURE IS PROFITABLE
Characteristics of Smart Failures:
• Costs of failure are low and returns are high
• We can quickly determine we are failing so we can pivot
• We learn
LEGITIMATE FAILURES
• You lacked all the data but had to go
• You got unlucky with circumstance
• Low cost of failure & high returns
F@*K UPS
• Lacked due diligence before or during
• Failed to learn
• High cost of failure & low returns
WHY FAIL?
• Ensure that you keep striving
• Continue to be surprised
• Keep an open mind
• Stay humble
• Build empathy for others who fail
• Build confidence in your resilience
• Build practical recovery skills
• Make failure less scary &
embarrassing
MANAGERIAL BEST PRACTICES
• Iterate Faster & Smaller
• Celebrate Failure
• Share & Learn from Failure
• Habitually Challenge the Status Quo
• Hire & Train Sherlocks and Wackos
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