I recently published my first blog post for Harvard Business Review – To Increase Innovation, Take the Sting Out of Failure.
It was nice to see it resonated with readers. One of the clear themes I noticed in the comments was – I’m a believer! But I’m not the problem. The rest of my organization is. How do I get the rest of my organization to support smart failures?
It’s a great question. The idea of supporting failure gets a lot of lip service in organizations, but that doesn’t mean it actually happens. It’s still scary.
While there are a lot of fancy organizational structure, process, or system strategies I could give to answer the question, the most powerful answer is to merely start with you. If you believe in innovation, and you believe in supporting smart failures, and you specify behaviors you want to exhibit and see in those around you, you WILL start to see change. You’ll also develop more courage to push others in the organization. It might not be as fast as you want. And people will still push back. But it’s the only way change happens.
–Doug
