Fail Your Way to Innovation

If you want to be consistently innovative (either personally or as an organization), you must be willing to fail. In my last post (If You Want to Innovate, Hire a Kindergartener), I noted that one of the keys to success was a willingness to try something, learn, make adjustments, and repeat.

One recent, large-scale example of that is Google Wave which Google just stopped developing.

While Wave was a failure, it was not a failure for Google. I agree with Karim Lakhani's assessment that "Google Wave Decision Shows Strong Innovation Management". Here are the reasons why:

• Google established performance benchmarks and remained committed to them.
  
• Google shut down Wave quickly. Too often, we become emotionally attached or equate a project's success with our own. The result is a tendency to continue wasting time, money, and resources.
  
• Google learned. Elements of the technology will be incorporated into other products. No doubt that Google gained valuable market lessons, too.
  
• Google's willingness to fail--and fail publicly--reinforces its culture of innovation. Senior Vice President Urs Hölzle wrote, "We are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science." What top-notch professional wouldn't want to work in an environment like that?
  

As leaders, we must break the mindset of our organizations that failure is necessarily bad. On the contrary, failure done properly (how ironic!) is a strong indicator of your organization's ability to innovate.