Archive for September, 2007
Failure Had A Price. Failure Has A Price. Failure Will Always Have A Price.
I’m guilty of preaching the “Don’t fire your innovators who fail” sermon to upper management.
I’ve done it many times.
Sometimes I’ve seen my advice followed, sometimes not.
The idea behind the sermon isn’t wrong. But when I look at the reasons why innovators who fail get pushed aside I find that the reasons lie less with management and more with the innovators themselves.
So assuming a company at least gives lip service to the idea that improvement and innovation is worth the pain of learning through failure, what differentiates the innovator-who-thrives versus the innovator-who-is-sent-packing when things get difficult?
Turns out the push aside vs treat as a learning experience decision depends more on how the innovator communicates and sets expectations than in how the project itself turns out. In a well run organization managers will make their decision based on your perceived future value - not on the cost of your most recent escapade. This allows managers to maintain a significant cost of failure while minimizing its impact on the future of the organization.
Over the next few weeks I’ll look at how Personality, Perseverance and Politicking can determine if you as an innovator will survive the failure (and believe it or not - the success) of your innovative project. Also we’ll look at why it’s useful for managers to maintain that fear of failure while promoting innovation.
No commentsBreaking Down Template Thinking - Prioritization
Template thinking leads to under-prioritized laundry lists of to-do’s.
If you’ve been in the business world for more than a few months then you have probably experienced the damage such thinking causes. Lots of work being done, nothing truly important to the organization being accomplished.
Sound familiar? My favorite solution to this problem occurred in a senior management retreat for a major company. The Corporate President asked his team to put together a list of priorities for the coming fiscal year. The list that came back was a staggering 20 points long.
He sent it back. “Shorten it.”
It came back 18 points long. Every point strongly defended.
Bob said, “Fine, we’ll go with this.”
The list was carefully typed up. The first page included our mission and the first three priorities. The second page the other 15 priorities. His team approved the two pages.
Bob then proceeded to forget to copy, distribute or refer to the second page.
Objectives were built off the first page.
Programs were budgeted according to the first page.
People were hired according to the first page.
No organization can have 18 life or death priorities. That’s like being at sea with a compass that stops at North every now and then. Forcing a short list helps everyone fit their personal, team and product concerns within the key priorities of the organization.
What happened to the other 15 priorities? Many of them were accomplished because they were important to a division or a product line. Some of them were key to accomplishing the first three priorities. Some of them disappeared because they sounded more important than they were. They were sorted according to the top three priorities.
To break down template thinking you have to force difficult decisions that prioritize what is truly important for your organization.
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