Embracing Productive Failure: The Key to Innovation in the 21st Century
Summary
In this article, we discuss the importance of embracing productive failure in order to foster innovation in the 21st century. We explore examples of intentional pivots and minimum viable products, and how they have influenced lesser-known companies. We also discuss the challenges that major corporations face in implementing productive failure and offer solutions to overcome them.
Table of Contents
- Intentional Pivots and Minimum Viable Products
- Education Recommendations for Mid-Career Non-Entrepreneurs
- Embracing Failure: The Key to Innovation
- Creating Platforms for Experimentation in the 21st Century
Intentional Pivots and Minimum Viable Products
The speaker discusses the success stories of intentional pivots, such as Groupon and Instagram, and minimum viable products, such as Zappos. These ideas have influenced many lesser-known companies, but their impact over the long term remains to be seen.
Education Recommendations for Mid-Career Non-Entrepreneurs
When asked about education recommendations for mid-career non-entrepreneurs in boring jobs, the speaker suggests that individuals should experiment with different things and measure their progress by how much value they create for customers. The speaker also believes that employers should have people in their organization whose job is to figure out the next big thing.
Embracing Failure: The Key to Innovation
The speaker argues that failure is not being rewarded enough and that embracing failure is a trendy but necessary thing. Productive failure is only effective if you learn something important from it. The Lean Startup method is designed to engineer more productive failures faster, so companies can embrace failure and pivot on the way to success. However, major corporations are often risk-averse, making it difficult for them to implement productive failure. One solution is to carve out some of the budget for internal entrepreneurs and create the right structure around them to hold them accountable. This approach has been successful in the case of Snap Tax, a disruptive innovation created by a team of five regular employees at Intuit. The team had an “island of freedom” to run experiments, which allowed them to thrive and compete with Intuit’s flagship product. The system was set up well, with clear metrics and accountability. Overall, embracing productive failure can lead to valuable insights and innovations, but it requires intentional design and structure.
Creating Platforms for Experimentation in the 21st Century
The speaker recounts their experience of having to speak to various managers in a company before finally reaching senior leadership who understood the importance of creating platforms for experimentation in the 21st century. They compare this realization to that of Todd Park in the US government, who implemented it at the Center for Medicare. The speaker encourages the audience to adopt this mindset and thanks Eric Rie for his talk.
Conclusion
In conclusion, embracing productive failure is crucial for fostering innovation in the 21st century. Companies should implement intentional design and structure to create platforms for experimentation and hold internal entrepreneurs accountable. By doing so, they can learn from failures and pivot towards success.
