Failure is not OK

One of the most annoying memes in corporate innovation is that failure is OK.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the good-vibe intent and (even more technically) the need to create a safe space for innovation to occur and encourage risk-taking in environments where risk is anything but a value-added proposition.

I get it.

What the average proponent of "Failure is Ok" usually doesn't get, though, is that the core idea is not that failure should be encouraged by any means. Failure only has value insofar as it unlocks critical learning, and the failure was of a very manageable proportion.

Fail fast. Fail small. Learn faster.

That's the full quote. And this one works for innovators and for those working in parts of your companies where the market cannot be fully understood, a new tech is emerging, scrambling every forecast, or... both. This is when you need to probe ahead without fully knowing what to expect (risk), expect a 100% guaranteed ROI from this (learning), and maybe score a win if luck prevails.

Encouraging people to "fail" is somewhat misguided in that regard.

No one should ask an innovation team to report on how many failures they had this month and treat that as a KPI, right? So why would you say it? Why not simply give a real indicator of the performance of the amount, quality, and usability of the 'learnings' acquired this month regarding different business priorities? Have you even designed a learning plan to remove the fog of war around the future of your core business?

Go ahead, I dare you. Ask your innovation team what the top five key learnings are that they are working on this quarter for the rest of the organization. How are they formatted? Who are the internal customers or stakeholders?

(Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer.)

Just like learning to bike or ski, if you don't fall at first, you're not learning anything. Still, we're clear about the fact that biking or skiing is not about the falling part.

Maybe remember that?