Guess I forgot to mention that companies–and people–that become leaders in innovation have a tolerance for calculated risk-taking. This doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind, but rather carefully weighing the possible gains against the risks and moving forward only when there’s a reasonable chance of success. This doesn’t do away with failure altogether, obviously; but it certainly does minimize its frequency–and often its impact.

Glad you like long-winded…er, in-depth responses!

Jeanne

Your assessment of the engineering business is, of course, fairly accurate, although they also have a propensity to be very conservative as well. Sometimes those two characteristics conflict with each other, but most of the time there’s enough leeway for growth.

I agree with you, though, about the need for most organizations to be open to risk-taking to a measured degree (along with its inevitable corollary - failure-tolerance). Otherwise they a) may not be flexible enough to survive, and b) they develop an atmosphere of fear - surely the most destructive places to work for anyone!

Good summary, too: when failure occurs, it’s up to us to rise up and try again - or the lesson is wasted and no growth occurs. Not good!

Don’t worry, Jeanne; I always appreciate an in-depth response!

The nature of engineering is such that it’s absolutely critical to learn from past mistakes so they aren’t perpetuated in future projects. This is really the name of the game in engineering, wouldn’t you say? This factor alone can be a real boon to the development of failure-tolerance in an engineering firm, as engineers analyze the reasons for the failure, learn from them, and institute design changes and other safeguards against future recurrence of the problem. This necessity very likely places engineering firms ahead of the game in this arena.

But a reasonable degree of failure-tolerance is needed in any industry if employees are to reach their full potential and companies meet their long-term goals; and it’s a wise manager who understands this. Failure-tolerant leadership or lack of it (and I’ve written a few articles/blog posts on this topic) can be the deciding factor in determining which companies become leaders in innovation. This is mainly because true innovation involves a great deal of risk, and the greater the risk the greater the potential for failure. It just goes along with the territory. Companies that have a culture of failure-tolerance tend to empower their employees to innovate by removing the fear of failure and its possible fallout.

In any company–as well as any life–a certain degree of failure is inevitable. It’s what we do with that failure that determines our future success. If we lack the capacity for failure-tolerance–for learning from our failures and using the insights gleaned from them to fuel our future successes–we truly do fail–not because of the initial failure, but because of our failure to try again.

Fascinating post! Sorry to have missed it the first time around! (And sorry to have written a blog post in your comments box!)

Jeanne