Fail Forward to Success

A client of mine was considering a new product line but faced 2 roadblocks to moving quickly on the idea, a $15,000 investment on equipment that was unproven, and a lead time of several weeks. They had customers clambering for this new product. What should they do?

We came up with a $500 alternative delivering 90% of the performance that could be trialed within 1-2 weeks. This was an easy decision, a Fail Fast decision. If it works, outstanding, we can invest more funds when appropriate. If it doesn’t work, we haven’t invested that much to worry about it. The results from this decision…..the $500 alternative worked better than anticipated!

With minimal investment, they were able to complete a proof of concept, confirming their process assumptions, allowing them to deliver products to clients much more quickly than they would have otherwise. It can now be replicated many times over to deliver capacity far above the original $15,000 investment option at far less cost.

Healthy organizations need to work opportunistically and entrepreneurially.

Organizational leaders need to lead this culture of innovation and demonstrate that everyone is expected to try new things, challenging the status quo, even if the status quo was established by them. It needs to be modeled starting at the top.

Do not be misled. A lack of failure does not guarantee success. Organizations need failure. We learn from our mistakes. Instead of expecting perfection and success every time, let’s embrace that we will make mistakes because we’re not perfect, but more importantly, because we are trying new things that won’t always work right the first time.

Here are some questions to consider:

•  A significant question all business leaders need to answer is have they created a culture where individuals feel empowered to take initiative, to try new things quickly, to risk “failing” in their task.
• How are you promoting a culture where it is OK to be wrong?
• Leaders, how comfortable are you with people challenging an idea you have or a direction you’ve set?
• The least expensive failures happen the most quickly. How can you speed the failure process up?
• The least expensive failures happen the most quickly. How can you speed the failure process up?
• Healthy collaboration with respectful challenges and disagreements leads to better solutions and quicker “verbal” failures. What are we doing to promote this culture?
• Are you willing to be vulnerable and admit that someone else has a better idea than you?