Rejoice In Failure

Leading at Light Speed is a powerful leadership book by Eric Douglas for businesses, public agencies, and nonprofits revealing the 10 Quantum Leaps to build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Illustrated in chapter 6, Stimulate the Creative Flow, Mr. Douglas defines the importance of celebrating failure along the rough road to innovation.

Leaders should not only celebrate successes, but failures as well. Failures are inevitable on the path of innovation, and smart leaders know there’s much to be learned from failure. We were in corroboration with an organization that created software applications intended for mid-sized companies. The company’s CEO, Tom, is an extremely social and communicable individual. “Yep, we nearly blew that one,” he would say in absolute candor to his employees. “We’ll get ‘em next time.”

Tom wanted his software development team to create a new product that would dramatically simplify the use of Java tools. Unfortunately, Tom had concerns that his team had become too self-satisfied and afraid of risk. “We aren’t certain how to accomplish that,” expressed one of the engineers when Tom described the final results he wanted to see. “That’s all right,” said Tom. “You’ll learn.”

Tom set up four teams inside the engineering department with four related tasks, and gave them a deadline. On the wall he put four color-coded charts with milestones and timescales – one for each team.

The deadline encouraged speedy progress. The teams worked like crazy. On the last day, they asked Tom to come into the conference room. “We’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news,” the engineering VP said.

Tom glanced up. “Tell me the good news first.”

“We’ve got a heck of a product,” said the department chief.

“What’s the bad news?” Tom questioned.

“It doesn’t work,” said the engineer.

Tom smiled. “Sounds great,” he voiced. “I’d like to hear more.” The engineers described the product and outlined for Tom how it would work – eventually.

“Why couldn’t you make the deadline?” Tom asked.

“It was an unrealistic timeline,” stated several workers.

Smiling, Tom encouraged his team to continue trying. Approximately four weeks after the project began, the team finally came in wearing smiles on their faces. “Guess what?” the engineers said. “It works much better than we imagined!”

Today, that product is the backbone of the company’s record profits.

If a person fails while attempting to innovate, they should be encouraged to try again! The light bulb was certainly not created on the first try. That is what must be done in order to encourage creative productivity.

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