In accepting a Golden Globes Award in 2009, Stephen Spielberg made a comment that has been echoed by many creative geniuses in a variety of ways. It was that with every project he challenges himself to push the envelope by asking “am I going to get away with this?” Similar perspectives are as follows:
• Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker write in The Deviant’s Advantage “Let’s recap our thesis: Innovation-all innovation, positive and negative-begins as a deviant idea germinating in the mind of a person dwelling on the fringe of society.”
• W. Edwards Demming is quoted in a great line about leadership: “It is the ability to drive fear out of the organization so that employees will feel comfortable to make decisions on their own.”
• Billy Joel at a commencement address: “If you love what you do, you’ll always do what you love. And if you’re doing what you love, you’re going to become very good at it.” And this is a country that rewards excellence.
• Emerson: “to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.”
• The statement by John F. Kennedy, “some people see things as they are and I see them as they could be.”
• Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were in a televised seminar with college students. They were asked about the biggest mistakes they made. Both responded that the opportunities they missed, like Warren Buffet not investing more in Microsoft, were their key mistakes. The openness and seeking out opportunities rather than worrying about making mistakes is what was so impressive.
• In a magazine article about Google an incident was related about a subordinate relating a several million mistake to the president. What was important was that the president was more pleased that the environment encouraged openness about acknowledging mistakes which also resulted in tremendous breakthroughs than the consequences of the mistakes.
These examples illustrate how we are afraid of failure and avoid great ideas that are not slam dunks. It is well known that we are less willing to take risks even if the probability of success says we should in many cases. Think of how many reorganizations and thousands of firings are occurring because companies refuse to face the realities of the current environment. The auto and banking businesses are probably the best examples of not having the guts to make inevitable changes. Google, Facebook, Amazon and other internet companies except Yahoo are examples of companies that have the vision to look forward.
2 comments on this topic
21. January - 7:22 am
This is quite relevant - thanks for posting. I was just on a call with a colleague where I mentioned ”it’s ok to make mistakes; it’s one of the ways we learn”.
“These examples illustrate how we are afraid of failure and avoid great ideas that are not slam dunks. It is well known that we are less willing to take risks even if the probability of success says we should in many cases.”
Of course it depends on the culture of your organization/department etc. And it’s important to recognize when you can make mistakes and when it’s best to be on “best behavior”
It’s about giving our colleagues the confidence to make mistakes in a safe environment and learn from them.