“If you’ve never failed… you’ve never lived” is a popular
video on YouTube describing the failures of people like Thomas Edison, once
called “too stupid to learn” by his teacher and Walt Disney, who was fired from
a newspaper for “lacking imagination”. Not every idea succeeds, and indeed,
some of America’s most triumphant inventors, artists and entrepreneurs have most
likely failed at some point in their lives. But without risk and the
possibility of failure, there can be no Innovation and no success. That is
precisely one of “Robert’s
Rules of Innovation” imperatives: No Risk,
No Innovation.
The success rate when it comes to innovation is very slim.
In fact, just 1 in 100 new product entries succeed in the grocery business,
according to a study by allbusiness.com. For every innovative product that
comes out of the NPD
process, there are plenty of ideas that don’t work out - deemed as
failures. What’s important is that companies have a tolerance for failure and
encourage risk taking. Fear of failure can
kill Innovation. Never punish for failed ideas. Instead, learn from them how to
improve in the future. Establish a level of trust so your team won’t be afraid
to think outside the box. To build a successful culture of Innovation,
encourage everyone on your New Product Development team to take risks!
“Robert’s Rules of
Innovation” gives five simple steps for encouraging initiative and Innovation.
Here are some tips:
1. Profiles in Risk: Clearly communicate the risk profile you are asking
your people to adopt and state why it is important to the organization’s
success.
2. Failure Management: Never allow an unsuccessful risk
to hamper a team member’s opportunities and advancement.
3. Key Learnings Process: Establish a formalized,
non-accusatory process for harvesting key learnings from unsuccessful
risks. Distribute these lessons-learned.
For more, see “Robert’s
Rules of Innovation” by Wiley, Spring 2010.