I have been pondering the discussion that was opened up on
strategy in a rapidly changing environment.
The HBR
article that Jill provided pointed out that some of the mental models are
changing around how to a successful business is run. The thing that occurred to me was that these
changes that our world is experiencing are impacting more than just our compartmentalized
idea of work. Every area of our life is
being touched by the rapidly evolving information age, new machine age, and
globalization.
In work and play, from education to imagination, in our
relationships and the quiet moments of our life, it’s as if someone in the last
20 years has changed the locks and we are left to figure out the new keys to
success . . . the new rules to the game.
The theme that I seem to see run through the article was
flexibility and creativity, being adaptable and nimble to the changing winds
and always looking at things from new angles and being open to possibilities.
Seeking out additional thought on the subject I turned to Ted
. . . Ted talks, that is. What are
people learning, figuring out and what epiphanies are shaping the way we (in the
very bawd sense) are thinking about success.
I came across a couple of interest.
The
key to success: Grit presents the findings from graduate research about
what makes someone successful across industries. It wasn’t IQ, talent or even social
connections — it was grit. Passion and
perseverance for very long-term goals . . . accepting delayed gratification
with faith that despite failure or setback, the mission is worth the effort and
the end will pay off. And inherently in
that, an understanding that failure is not a permanent condition — it’s but a
step along the way that teaches us the course. i.e. they are resilient.
Smart
failure for a fast-changing world discusses the new paradigm we face where
learning is not keeping up with the pace of change. The speed, scale and density of interaction
has rapidly increased and we have crossed over from a world where your education
allows you to forecast what is “right and wrong” vs. the new age we live in
where failure is our best teacher to catch us up in the learning we need for
the current system.
This along with some other talks made me wonder if I was
asking the wrong question. Maybe the
question I am asking shouldn’t be, how do we succeed but how should we
fail? Or in the words of the HBR
article, what is the best systematic way of exiting business. If failure is actually viewed as successfully
identifying the need for additional experimentation, iteration and learning,
how do we set ourselves up to “fail often so you can succeed sooner” in the
words of Tom Kelley. I have also heard
the quotes “fail early, fail fast, fail often” and “fail fast, fail cheep.”
This article from Bloomberg
Businessweek ties it all back into the ideas of rapid prototyping, rapid
feedback, iteration, and co-creation.
The article ends by reminding readers:
“The only barrier to failing fast and failing cheap is your
ego. You must be willing to fail, fail, and fail again if you are going to win
in today's competitive marketplace.”
Instead of putting the emphasis on failure, I'd put the emphasis on learning. Thus, it's not so much about failing fast and failing cheaply; it's about learning fast and learning cheaply, with failure being a potential part of that.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, it's also important to learn from success as another relatively recent school of thought reminds us. This is David Cooperrider's work on Appreciative Inquiry and his and others' new work on "Positive Psychology."
If learning is the common theme, then we might ask what attributes help us to learn (from success, failure, the experiences of others, etc.). I would argue that "beginner's mind" is one of the keys: we can't learn new things if we believe we already know everything we need to know. Actively practicing "non-attachment" is another way of talking about all this.
Those Buddhists are smart cookies!