Every leader loves it when their team performance is humming along nicely.

But, if this is always the case, you may be losing out on a great learning opportunity through “productive failure.” 

There are many goals that you really do not want a person or team to fail at – such as processing payroll on time or submitting a required report to a government agency.  And many of these goals are binary – you either get them done or not.

Other goals, however, have a performance range.  How big is our profit margin?  What are our quarterly sales numbers?  What is our Net Promoter Score?

Let’s say that you have been working hard on Net Promoter Score (customer loyalty) and your numbers are pretty good – but it would be great to get them higher.  Here is how you can use “productive failure” to learn and grow.

1.  Challenge Your Team to Set a Hard Goal.  Inspire your team to reach even higher and explain the payoffs for the team and the organization.

2.  Assure Them that Learning and Creativity are Paramount.  While achieving the goal is important, explain that the main thing is to try new ideas that you can learn from.

3.  Create a Safe-Fail Zone.  Tell the team – and keep reinforcing this – that this is a “safe-fail” zone in which they are empowered to try new ideas, even if they do not work 100%.

4.  Design and Implement New Ideas.  Enthusiastically implement your new plan and be sure to document the new process.

5.  Don’t Freak over Failure.  If you set the goal high enough, then it is likely your team failed.  You can acknowledge this – but remind the team that they had tried new, creative ideas – which was the main point.  This step is crucial, or your team may never try anything new again.

6.  Conduct an After Action Review.  With a focus on learning, review everything the team did and what you can do better the next time.  Celebrate the learning!  Check here for more on After Action Reviews.

Continuous improvement and growth is a serious competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced work environment.  Use “productive failure” to keep your team improving their Mission Impact.

*Ideas for this blog taken from: Morris, S.  “To Help Your Team Learn, Set Them Up for Productive Failure,” Harvard Business Review online, November 6, 2024.

I think I might be.

To me, productivity is not about being a workaholic.  It is about getting the most out of every second of every minute in the day.  That way I can get my work done more quickly and have time for fun (as I wonder if I will ever see a live baseball game again).

Many of us want to be as productive as we can.  But we also want to be creative, right?  A recent article* in Harvard Business Review shows us that a “productivity” mindset can be the enemy of creativity.  Here’s how.

The “go-go” mindset of productivity is the opposite of what we need in order to be creative – unstructured, unfocused, free time.  If we want to be creative then this makes the case for actually scheduling in free time a various points in our schedules each week.

It also makes a case for vacations – for example, Lin Manuel Miranda got his idea for the musical, Hamilton, while on vacation on a beach in Mexico.

And for regular workouts – many of us can think of times that ideas came to us while on a long run; or in the shower afterwards!  Exercise is good for our health and our creativity.

Creativity does not come when it is forced, which is why it is good to schedule multiple brainstorming times with your team when looking for a creative breakthrough.

Using these insights, we can have both our productivity and our creativity so long as we schedule our time appropriately for both – set scheduled time for our to do lists and unstructured time for our imaginations to freely explore.  In this way we can maximize our overall performance and Mission Impact.

*Daisly, B.  “Don’t Let Your Obsessions With Productivity Kill Your Creativity,”  Harvard Business Review online, March 10, 2020.

This is the conclusion of a recent article in Harvard Business Review*, that success in innovation through experimentation is more about culture than understanding complex methodologies to run experiments.  Here are some ideas from the article:

*Tolerance for Failure.  Many organizations are far too conservative and overly worried about the failure of an experiment.  Often, the downsides are exaggerated.

*Leaders Must Role Model.  It is ideal if you can lead some experiments and make sure others know about it.  It is even more important that when your experiments fail that you make sure others know this and that they see you stress what you have learned from it.  Support others in their experiments and their failure.

*Use A/B Testing.  This is frequently used technique in direct mail – both for advertising and fundraising for nonprofits.  It is the idea that you can try two different approaches for two similar audiences and then see which one works best.  You can even choose a small random sample of a new approach if you are concerned with changing from your traditional way of doing things.

*Be Ethically Sensitive.  Once you decide that you want to be more intentional about a culture of experimentation then include discussion of the ethical implications in your ethics training and onboarding processes.

*Provide Systems and Resources.  Experimentation requires investment in the development of systems that support it and will require resources.  You can start small, but this needs to be a budget item.

While the article does not mention it, experimentation is what the Lean Startup methodology – used widely in startups – is all about.  It suggests creating small experiments and “pivoting” quickly once data shows the idea will not work.  Check out this blog for more details.

Innovation without some risk is virtually impossible, and it requires experimentation to see which innovations make sense for further investment.  Add a culture of experimentation to your organization and make even more of a Mission Impact.

*Thomke, S., “Building a Culture of Experimentation,” Harvard Business Review, March – April 2020, pp. 40 – 48.

Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good

Here are the three core guiding principles of the book:

*Think Big.  “Be audacious in the difference you aspire to make, basing your goals on the size of the real need in the world rather than what seems incrementally achievable.” (p. 23)

*Start Small.  Create small experiments to test your ideas so you can learn and adapt quickly to changes that need to be made.

*Relentlessly Seek Impact.  Don’t fall in love with your first idea on how to address a problem; it needs to be tested and perhaps changed.  Fall in love with the problem, instead, so you can be open to the best solution possible.

In discussing the principle of Thinking Big, Chang points out the importance of having proper metrics for aspirations: “. . . in the absence of a clear time frame or measure of success, how do we know if we’re making enough progress?” (p. 28).  This is certainly consistent with the book Leap of Reason and another calls for the importance of accurate outcomes measurement.

Other great Thinking Big quotes include:

“The birth of innovation begins with a clear, aspirational goal.  This is the top-down vision of the change you want to create . . .” (p. 29)

“. . . unclear and conservative goals are one of the root causes of inertia in the social sector.” (p. 29)

“. . . the purpose of aspirational goals is to stretch thinking and inspire.” (p. 34)

All of this resonates especially for me as it is so consistent with the Mission Impact book.  For more on aspirational goal setting, see this article.

Stay tuned for the next two blogs which will focus next on Starting Small and then on Relentlessly Seeking Impact.

“Thinking outside of the box” is a difficult thing to do – especially when you have been ingrained within an organization or industry for many years.

Following are a few techniques to help us all “think different” which are from a recent article in Harvard Business Review.*  They are designed to help us identify possible strategic opportunities we had not seen before.

1.  Contrast: Challenge the Status Quo

*Identify the key assumptions that are a part of the typical thinking in your organization or industry.

*If one or more of them were incorrect, what opportunities might that create?

*Make some deliberate changes to how you do your work normally to see if you can identify assumptions you should challenge.

If you can find a way to successfully carry out your work following a different set of assumptions then this could lead to a strategic advantage.

2.  Combination: Link Disparate Products/Services

*Create brainstorming teams of people with very different backgrounds to look at possible combinations.

*Consider coordination of services outside of your organization; even with competitors.

This kind of creative thinking connected Nike and Apple; now Nike shoes track steps on an iPod.

3.  Constraint: Turn Limitations into Strengths

*List your “incompetencies” and brainstorm how they might be advantages.

*Purposely create some constraints for yourself to brainstorm new ways of doing things.

Maybe your small size makes you nimble and easy to change; maybe your inexperience can make you seem “fresh” to a market.  Channel your inner MacGyver.

4.  Context: Look for Solutions from Different Industries

*Create a focus group of people outside of your industry and explain your business to them.  Ask if they see different ways of doing things than what you are doing.

*Meet with people who have been leading users of your services and ask them what else they might dream of wanting from you.

Everyone used to know that you “had” to rent a car for a full day, unlike buying other services by the hour.  But now we have Zipcar, etc – not to mention bikeshares.

Strategy – by definition – is a creative act.  There is no right or wrong answer.  And there is no secret to coming up with the winning strategy.  But these techniques provide us an opportunity to look at our situations with unique lenses and spark creativity.

*Brandeberger, A.  “Strategy Needs Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, March – April 2019, pp. 59 – 65.

*Look through a fresh lens.  A key idea here is to talk with customers – to get out of your office and look to see what is going on in your customer’s world.  Set aside preconceptions, quit talking in your office echo chamber, and talk with real people – rather than relying on reports.

*Step back to expand your understanding. Sometimes getting away from the front lines can provide this opportunity.  Legendary Chef Ferran Adria, is quoted in the article as saying “The pressure to serve every day doesn’t offer the kind of tranquility necessary to create as we would like.  The most important thing is to leave time for regeneration.”  How can you step back?

*Look for unexpected combinations.  Ask questions such as “What if we no longer did what we do now?”  Look at your capabilities and try to apply them to other domains.  What new products or services might you come up with?  In one study, separate groups of carpenters, roofers, and in-line skaters were asked to provide design improvement ideas for the other groups.  In each case they came up with better solutions for the field outside their own.

*Test smarter to learn faster.  Consistent with the Lean Start-Up methodology, the authors suggest lots of experimentation of small sizes.  They recommend a mindset of “testing to improve” – rather than trying to prove you are right.

*Maneuver to avoid being shot down.  Take care in how you frame your innovation and respect that the culture you are speaking to may not immediately like it. The Kodak inventor of the digital camera now thinks that naming it “filmless photography” did not work well in a company where everything revolved around film!  Watch how you communicate your ideas.

There are many different ways to innovate.  Try some of these the next time you and your team are working toward a breakthrough Mission Impact idea and see what you discover!

*“Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life,” Bouquet, C, Barsoux, J-L, & Wade, M.  Harvard Business Review, November – December, 2018, pp. 102 – 113.

I respond “Absolutely!”

There is no such thing as a “no risk strategy.”  Certainly some strategies are riskier than others, and we need to be responsible about the amount of risk we take.  However, I think that most organizations err on the side of playing it too safe – especially very successful organizations.  They don’t want to tarnish their track record and therefore act far too conservatively.

If you play it too safe then you “risk” giving up your dreams.  And that is a regret that can last a lifetime.

Dr. Russ Ackoff once said that “errors of omission” – not doing things that should have been done, are worse than “errors of commission” – doing something wrong:

“Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did. For example, IBM ran into serious trouble several decades ago because it did not pursue development of the small computer. Eventually it woke up . . .  Kodak was slow to get into digital photography and is paying a very high price for it today.”

We can’t stand still or tread water.  Today’s VUCA environment (Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, Ambiguous) will change quickly.  Only by boldly setting our visions forward with a commitment to staying alert to that environment can we maximize our impact.

Certainly strategic contingencies can be established, but there is always risk.

Follow your dreams!

Gregerson has invented a process he calls “Question Burst” which focuses the brainstorming process on generating questions that are central to a problem or opportunity, rather than answers.  In his consulting work with major companies, he has found this method as a better path to solutions.  Here’s a summary of the process:

1. Set the Stage. First, invite just a few people to participate in the process and give them a very brief summary of the problem or opportunity that you are thinking about.  Try to invite people who may have different perspectives from you and one another.

Rules of engagement: people are only allowed to list questions, not solutions, and they are just to state the question – not provide a long justification/explanation.

2. Brainstorm the Questions. Set a timer for only four minutes and challenge everyone to get as many questions out as possible in that limited time – aim for at least fifteen good questions.  Focus on quantity.

Invite a couple more small groups to do the same exercise over a few more days.

3. Identify a quest – and commit to it. After some time, identify the questions that you feel frame the problem or challenge the best and then set out to solve the questions.  Gregersen says that doing this activity over time can help people become better at asking questions, which is vital to innovation.

Of course, the key is follow-up and really focusing on making sure you get your answers to the key questions.

It sounds like an interesting exercise worth trying.  Good luck at asking great questions and having successful brain hurricanes that lead to innovative Mission Impact.

*”Better Brainstorming,” Harvard Business Review, March – April 2018, pp. 64 – 71.

Grant was inspired to research creativity and originality after he chose not to invest in the idea for a new company developed by some of his graduate students because they did not fit his profile of what successful entrepreneurs act like.  The company is Warby Parker.  You have probably heard of them – they were named Fast Company’s Most Innovative Company in 2015 and have been wildly successful.  Grant is not happy that he did not invest.  But why was his entrepreneur profile wrong? What do successful originals really look like?  That is what the book is about.

Here are some insights:

*The importance of creativity: “Ultimately, the people who choose to champion originality are the ones who propel us forward.”  “They know in their hearts that failing would yield less regret than failing to try.”

*Being a “risk taker” not so important: “I want to debunk the myth that originality requires extreme risk taking and persuade you that originals are actually far more ordinary than we realize.”

*Creative Quantity Better than Quality: “In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”  “Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.”

*Achievement Orientation Limits Creativity: “When achievement motivation goes sky-high, it can crowd out originality: The more you value achievement, the more you come to dread failure.”

*Procrastination: It can be a good thing!  If you procrastinate “strategically” – “take a break in the middle of brainstorming” and come back to it later. This encourages divergent thinking.

These are not just Grant’s opinions.  He is a Professor at the Wharton School of Business and all of these ideas are very well researched.

This is just a taste of some of the great ideas in the book.  To learn more, you can check out Grant’s TED Talk here and even take his assessment on how “original” you are.  How original are you???

Creativity and innovation are key to making even more of a Mission Impact.  Check out Adam Grant’s ideas and become even more of an Original.