Think of a work-related failure that you experienced or you are aware of and after describing it, answer the following questions: • What individual and/or organizational factors might have contributed to the failure? • What was the manager's or organization's reaction to the failure? How does that reaction compare to what you learned in this week's lesson? • Did it become a learning experience? If so, in what way? If not, why not? • Based on what your learned would you describe this organization as innovative? Why or why not?
This week we focused on the culture of failure.
There are many legends about the innovative success of companies and their founders, including great financial rewards. Microsoft and Google both started life in a garage and their founders are now billionaires!
Innovative companies should also accept that the innovation process is messy..
It’s easy to assume that the products or processes in these stories were “light bulb” ideas, generated in full form and ready for the market. What we don’t usually hear about are products that were tested by these same companies but were not successful, about the financial investments made in trial products that never earned a return.