Learning to fail: share your work!
In this field of innovation work, we often are reminding ourselves and clients that failing fast is a must. As the pace of change in organizations (and indeed in the world) increases, it is becoming more and more important that we remember this: failing (whether fast or otherwise) is not easy without practice. Most of us have practiced avoiding failure for a lifetime. So, don’t underestimate how much people will resist this, either overtly or covertly.
So, if failing fast and failing to learn is a giant leap for many of your talented team, a good start would be to practice failing in smaller bite-sized actions. I’m a big believer in nudging systems of behaviour forward (especially ones that are emotionally driven), and the best way I know how to do that is to encourage people to act their way into new ways of thinking and to track and share the story of how those new behaviours are being rewarded. Social proof is a powerful motivator for change.
Small Step 1-Share your work!
It seems obvious to those of us who work in open environments, on white boards and on walls, but this is a big step for some. Designers have been showing their work as a part of their practice for decades, but many other professionals have been practicing the art of working toward perfection (often alone) for their whole working life.
What does it mean to show your work? Show it early — when it is just a beginning of an idea. Put it up on a wall where everyone can see it. Invite critique, suggestions, input, and ideas. Be willing to take it all down and start again. Receive input with curiosity. Tell that little voice in your head that wants to defend your white board to sit down and be quiet.
The connection to culture
On the left side of our new Culture Scan, there are a few elements that tie directly to fostering a willingness to fail fast:
- Short Learning Cycles: if your organization only builds its projects on long and expensive waterfall structures and doesn’t allow for short cycles of build-measure-learn, people will quickly realize that new information that may set us on a new course is unwelcome. They will be unlikely to share work early, or to embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
- Trust: Sharing our work and failing fast requires an immense amount of trust in each other. We need to know that we can go out on a limb and propose a wilder idea, or test a new prototype, and that we will be rewarded for bringing deeper insight and learning toward our final product.
- Leaders who sponsor innovation: Leadership has a significant role to play in allowing and encouraging people to fail fast, not because it sounds good but because it is good business. When people are punished for failure either in small meeting moments or significant project milestones people will take note.
- Rewards and incentives for innovation work: If your people only receive rewards for successful products or projects, they will resist failing fast no matter how much sense it makes. Innovative companies seek out ways to reward not just the launched product, but the learning milestones along the way. Take a cue from the design world where early prototypes are kept and shown as if to say Look at what we did way back then! Look how much it has changed! See what we learned? See what the wild ideas inspired?
The job for today is to look at the type of culture you have and whether or not it is ready to fail — and ready to innovate.