When there’s disagreement between words and behavior, believe the behavior. This is especially true when the words deny the behavior.
When there’s disagreement between the data and the decision, the data is innocent.
When there’s agreement that there’s insufficient data but a decision must be made, there should be no disagreement that the decision is judgment-based.
When there’s disagreement on the fact that there’s no data to support the decision, that’s a problem.
When there’s disagreement on the path forward, it’s helpful to have agreement on the process to decide.
When there’s disagreement among professionals, there is no place for argument.
When there’s disagreement, there is respect for the individual and a healthy disrespect for the ideas.
When there’s disagreement, the decisions are better.
When there’s disagreement, there’s independent thinking.
When there’s disagreement, there is learning.
When there’s disagreement, there is vulnerability.
When there’s disagreement, there is courage.
When there’s disagreement, there is trust.
Image credit: Pixabay
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When you are asked a question and you don’t know the answer, what do you say? What does that say about you?
What happens to people in your organization who say “I don’t know.”? Are they lauded or laughed at? Are they promoted, overlooked, or demoted? How many people do you know that have said: “I don’t know.”? And what does that say about your company?
When you know someone doesn’t know, what do you do? Do you ask them a pointed question in public to make everyone aware that the person doesn’t know? Do you ask oblique questions to raise doubt about the person’s knowing? Do you ask them a question in private to help them know they don’t know? Do you engage in an informal discussion where you plant the seeds of knowing? And how do you feel about your actions?
When you say “I don’t know.” you make it safe for others to say it. So, do you say it? And how do you feel about that?
When you don’t know and you say otherwise, decision quality suffers and so does the company. Yet, some companies make it difficult for people to say “I don’t know.” Why is that? Do you know?
I think it’s unreasonable to expect people to know the answer to know the answers to all questions at all times. And when you say “I don’t know.” it doesn’t mean you’ll never know; it means you don’t know at this moment. And, yet, it’s difficult to say it. Why is that? Do you know?
Just because someone asks a question doesn’t mean the answer must be known right now. It’s often premature to know the answer, and progress is not hindered by the not knowing. Why not make progress and figure out the answer when it’s time for the answer to be known? And sometimes the answer is unknowable at the moment. And that says nothing about the person that doesn’t know the answer and everything about the moment.
It’s okay if you don’t know the answer. What’s not okay is saying you know when you don’t. And it’s not okay if your company makes it difficult for you to say you don’t know. Not only does that create a demoralized workforce, but it’s also bad for business.
Why do companies make it so difficult to say “I don’t know.”? You guessed it – I don’t know.
Image credit: Pixabay
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If you don’t know what the problem is, that’s your first problem.
A problem can’t be a problem unless there’s a solution. If there’s no possible solution, don’t try to solve it, because it’s not a problem.
If there’s no problem, you have a big problem.
If you’re trying to solve a problem, but the solution is outside your sphere of influence, you’re taking on someone else’s problem.
If someone tries to give you a gift but you don’t accept it, it’s still theirs. It’s like that with problems.
If you want someone to do the right thing, create a problem for them that, when solved, the right thing gets done.
Problems are good motivators and bad caretakers.
A problem is between two things, e.g., a hammer and your thumb. Your job is to figure out the right two things.
When someone tries to give you their problem, keep your hands in your pockets.
A problem can be solved before it happens, while it happens, or after it happened. Each time domain has different solutions, different costs, and different consequences. Your job is to choose the most appropriate time domain.
If you have three problems, solve one at a time until you’re done.
Solving someone else’s problem is a worst practice.
If you solve the wrong problem, you consume all the resources needed to solve the right problem without any of the benefits of solving it.
Ready, fire, aim is no way to solve problems.
When it comes to problems, defining IS solving.
If you learn one element of problem-solving, learn to see when someone is trying to give you their problem.
Image credit: Pixabay
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Innovation is something different that creates value. Sometimes it’s big, new to the world, world-changing things. Sometimes it’s a slight tweak to make things easier, faster, cheaper or better.
Sometimes, it’s both.
It’s no secret that the military and NASA are birthplaces of incredible inventions (something new) and innovations (something different that creates value). Most people know that Velcro, nylon, and powdered drinks (Tang!) originated at Nasa, and that Jeep, GPS, and the internet come to us from the military.
But did you know that these 10 everyday innovations have their origin in the military?
1. Duct Tape
Invented in 1942 to seal ammo boxes with something that could resist water and dirt while also being fast and easy to remove so soldiers could quickly access ammunition when they needed it. Originally, it was made by applying a rubber-based adhesive to duck cloth, a plain and tightly woven cotton fabric, and has evolved over the years to be used for everything from repairing equipment on the moon to purses.
2. Synthetic Rubber Tires
Speaking of rubber, prior to WWII, most rubber was harvested from trees in South America and shipped to southern Asia where the majority of rubber products were produced. When the Axis powers cut-off access to Asia, the US military turned to Firestone, Goodyear, and Standard Oil to create a replacement substance. The recipe they created is still used today.
3. Silly Putty
Image Credit: thestrong.org
Like most inventions, there were a lot of failed experiments before the right synthetic rubber recipe was found. Silly Putty is the result of one of those experiments. A scientist at GE developed the strange substance but quickly shelved it after it became clear that it had no useful military application. Years later, GER execs started showing off the novelty item at cocktail parties, an advertising exec in attendance saw its commercial potential and bought the manufacturing rights, packaged it into eggs and sold it as a toy. 350 million eggs later, we’re still playing with it.
4. Superglue
The result of another failed experiment, Superglue came onto the market in 1958 and has stuck around ever since (sorry, that pun was intended). Military scientists were testing materials to use as clear plastic rifle sights and created an incredibly durable but impossibly sticky substance called cyanoacrylate. Nine years later it was being sold commercially as Superglue and eventually did make its way into military use during the Vietnam War as a way to immediately stop bleeding from wounds.
5. Feminine Hygiene Pads
Image Credit: Museum of American History
Before Superglue was used to stop bleeding, bandages woven with cellulose were used on the battlefields and hospitals. Seeing how effective the bandages were at holding blood and the convenience of having so many on hand, US and British WW1 nurses began using them as sanitary napkins and bandage makers adapted and expanded their post-War product lines to accommodate.
6. Undershirts
Image Credit: Foto-ianniello/Getty Images
While people have been wearing undergarments for centuries, the undershirt as we know it — a t-shaped, cotton, crewneck — didn’t come into being until the early twentieth century. Manufactured and sold by the Cooper Underwear Co., it caught the Navy’s eye as a more convenient and practical option than the current button-up shirts. In 1905, it became part of the official Navy uniform and the origin of the term “crewneck.”
7. Aerosol Big Spray
Image Credit: National WWII Museum
Soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater of WWII had a lot to worry about, so they were eager to cross mosquitos and malaria off that list. In response, the Department of Defense teamed up with the Department of Agriculture to find a way to deliver insecticide as a fine mist. The first aerosol “bug bomb” was patented in 1941 and, thanks to the development of a cheaper plastic aerosol valve, became commercially available to civilians in 1949.
8. Canned Food
Image Credit: Pacific Paratrooper — WordPress.com
While it’s not surprising that canned foods were originally created for the military, it may surprise you to learn that it was Napoleon’s armies that first used the concept. In response to the French Government’s offer of a large cash reward for anyone who could find a way to preserve large quantities of food, an inventor discovered that food cooked inside a jar wouldn’t spoil unless the seal leaked, or the container was broken. But glass jars are heavy and fragile, so innovation continued until WW1 when metal cans replaced the glass jars.
9. Microwave
RadaRange on the Nuclear Ship NS Savannah
This is another one that you probably would have guessed has its origins in the military but may be surprised by its actual origin story. The term “microwave” refers to an adaptation of radar technology that creates electromagnetic waves on a tiny scale and passes those micro-waves through food, vibrating it, and heating it quickly. The original microwaves made their debut in 1946 on ships but it took another 20 years to get the small and affordable enough to be commercially viable.
10. Wristwatches
Image Credit: Hodinkee
Watches first appeared on the scene in the 15th century but they didn’t become reliable or accurate until the late 1700s. However, up until the early 20th century, wristwatches were primarily worn as jewelry by women and men used pocket watches. During its military campaigns in the late 1880s, the British Army began using wristwatches as a way to synchronize maneuvers without alerting the enemy to their plans. And the rest, as they say, is history.
So, there you have it. 10 everyday innovations brought to us civilians by the military. Some, like synthetic rubber, started as intentional inventions (something new) and quickly became innovations (something new that creates value). Some, like superglue and silly putty, are “failed” experiments that became innovations. And some, like undershorts and feminine products, are pure innovations (value-creating adaptations of pre-existing products to serve different users and users).
A few weeks ago, a Google researcher leaked an internal document asserting that Google (and open AI) will lose the AI “arms race” to Open Source AI.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t understand much of the tech speak – LLM, LLaMA, RLHF, and LoRA are just letters to me. But I understood why the memo’s writer believed that Google was about to lose out on a promising new technology to a non-traditional competitor.
They’re the same reasons EVERY large established company loses to startups.
Congratulations, big, established industry incumbents, you’re finally innovating like Google!
(Please note the heavy dose of sarcasm intended).
Innovation at Google Today
The document’s author lists several reasons why “the gap is closing astonishingly quickly” in terms of Google’s edge in AI, including:
“Retraining models from scratch is the hard path” – the tendency to want to re-use (re-train) old models because of all the time and effort spent building them, rather than start from scratch using newer and more flexible tools
“Large models aren’t more capable in the long run if we can iterate faster on small models” – the tendency to want to test on a grand scale, believing the results are more reliable than small tests and drive rapid improvements.
“Directly competing with open source is a losing proposition” – most people aren’t willing to pay for perfect when “good enough” is free.
“We need them more than they need us” – When talent leaves, they take knowledge and experience with them. Sometimes the competitors you don’t see coming.
“Individuals are not constrained by licenses to the same degree as corporations” – Different customers operate by different rules, and you need to adjust and reflect that.
“Being your own customer means you understand the use case” – There’s a huge difference between designing a solution because it’s your job and designing it because you are in pain and need a solution.
What it sounds like at other companies
Even the statements above are a bit tech industry-centric, so let me translate them into industry-agnostic phrases, all of which have been said in actual client engagements.
Just use what we have. We already paid to make it.
Lots of little experiments will take too long, and the dataset is too small to be trusted. Just test everything all at once in a test market, like Canada or Belgium.
We make the best . If customers aren’t willing to pay for it because they don’t understand how good it is, they’re idiots.
It’s a three-person startup. Why are we wasting time talking about them?
Aren’t we supposed to move fast and test cheaply? Just throw it in Google Translate, and we’ll be done.
Urban Millennials are entitled and want a reward. They’ll love this! (60-year-old Midwesterner)
How You (and Google) can get back to the Innovative Old Days
The remedy isn’t rocket (or computer) science. You’ve probably heard (and even advocated for) some of the practices that help you avoid the above mistakes:
Call out the “sunk cost fallacy,” clarify priorities, and be transparent about trade-offs. Even if minimizing costs is the highest priority, is it worth it at the expense of good or even accurate data?
Define what you need to learn before you decide how to learn it. Apply the scientific method to the business by stating your hypothesis and determining multiple ways to prove or disprove it. Once that’s done, ask decision-makers what they need to see to agree with the test’s result (the burden of proof you need to meet).
Talk. To. Your. Customers. Don’t run a survey. Don’t hire a research firm. Stand up from your desk, walk out of your office, go to your customers, and ask them open-ended questions (Why, how, when, what).
Constantly scan the horizon and seek out the small players. Sure, most of them won’t be anything to worry about, but some will be on to something. Pay attention to them.
See #3
See #3
Big companies don’t struggle with innovation because the leaders aren’t innovative (Google’s founders are still at the helm), the employees aren’t smart (Google’s engineers are amongst the smartest in the world), or the industry is stagnating (the Tech industry has been accused of a lot, but never that).
Big companies struggle to innovate because operating requires incredible time, money, and energy. Adding innovation, something utterly different, to the mix feels impossible. But employees and execs know it’s essential. So they try to make innovation easier by using the tools, processes, and practices they already have.
It makes sense.
Until you wake up and realize you’re Google.
Image credit: Unsplash
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When asked to describe his test for determining what is and isn’t hard-core pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart responded, “I know it when I see it.”
In that sense, pornography and failure may have a lot in common.
By accident, I spent the month of April thinking, writing (here and here), and talking about failure. Then, in the last week, a bank failed, two top-seeded sports teams were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, and the New York Times wrote a feature article on the new practice of celebrating college rejections.
Failure was everywhere.
But was it?
SVB, Signature, First Republic – Failure.
On Monday, First Republic Bank became the third bank this year to fail. Like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, it met the definition of bank failure according to the FDIC – “the closing of a bank by a federal or state banking regulatory agency…[because] it is unable to meet its obligations to depositors and others.”
It doesn’t matter if the bank is a central part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, is on the cutting edge of new financial instruments like cryptocurrency, or caters to high-net-worth individuals. When you give money to a bank, an institution created to keep your money safe, and it cannot give it back because it spent it, that is a failure.
Milwaukee Bucks – Failure?
Even if you’re not an NBA fan, you probably heard about the Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo’s interview after the team’s playoff elimination.
Here’s some quick context – the Milwaukee Bucks had the best regular season record and were widely favored to win the title. Instead, they lost in Game 5 to the 8th-ranked Miami Heat. After the game, a reporter asked Antetokounmpo if he viewed the season as a failure, to which Antetokounmpo responded:
“It’s not a failure; it’s steps to success. There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me? It’s a wrong question; there’s no failure in sports.”
If you haven’t seen the whole clip, it’s worth your time:
The media went nuts, fawning over Antetokounmpo’s thoughtful and philosophical response, the epitome of an athlete who gives his all and is graceful in defeat. One writer even went so far as to proclaim that “Antetokounmpo showed us another way to live.”
But not everyone shared that perspective. In the post-game show, four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal was one of the first to disagree,
“I played 19 seasons and failed 15 seasons; when I didn’t win it, it was a failure, especially when I made it to the finals versus the (Houston) Rockets and lost, made it to the finals for the fourth time with the (Los Angeles) Lakers and lost, it was definitely a failure.
.
I can’t tell everybody how they think, but when I watch guys before me, the Birds, the Kareems, and you know that’s how they thought, so that’s how I was raised.
.
He’s not a failure as a player, but is it a failure as a season? I would say yes, but I also like his explanation. I can understand and respect his explanation, but for me, when we didn’t win it, it was always my fault, and it was definitely a failure.”
Did Antetokounmpo fail? Are the Bucks a failure? Was their season a failure?
It depends.
College Rejections – Not Failure
Failure is rarely fun, but it can be absolutely devastating if all you’ve ever known is success. Just ask anyone who has ever applied to college. Whether it was slowly opening the mailbox to see if it contained a big envelope or a small one or hesitatingly opening an email to get the verdict, the college application process is often the first time people get a taste of failure.
Now, they also get a taste of ice cream.
Around the world, schools are using the college application and rejection process as a learning experience:
LA: Seniors gather to feed their rejection letters into a shredder and receive an ice cream sundae. The student with the most rejections receives a Barnes & Noble gift card. “You have to learn that you will survive and there is a rainbow at the other end,” said one of the college counselors.
NYC: After adding their rejection letters to the Rejection Wall, students pull a prize from the rejection grab bag and enjoy encouraging notes from classmates like, “You’re too sexy for Vassar” or “You’ve been rejected, you’re too smart. Love, NYU.”
Sydney, Australia: a professor started a Rejection Wall of Fame after receiving two rejections in one day, sharing his disappointment with a colleague only to hear how reassured they were that they weren’t alone.
“I know it when I see it” – Failure
I still don’t know a single definition or objective test for failure.
But I do know that using “I’ll know it when I see it” to define failure is a failure.
It’s a failure because we can define success and failure before we start.
Sometimes failure is easy to define – if you are a bank and I give you money, and you don’t give it back to me with interest, that is a failure. Sometimes the definition is subjective and even personal, like defining failure as not making the playoffs vs. not winning a championship, or not applying to a school vs. not getting in.
Maybe failure is everywhere. Maybe it’s not.
I’ll know it when I define it.
Image credit: Pixabay
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If you know how to do it, it’s because you’ve done it before. You may feel comfortable with your knowledge, but you shouldn’t. You should feel deeply uncomfortable with your comfort. You’re not trying hard enough, and your learning rate is zero.
Seek out “don’t know.”
If you don’t know how to do it, acknowledge you don’t know, and then go figure it out. Be afraid, but go figure it out. You’ll make mistakes, but without mistakes, there can be no learning.
No mistakes, no learning. That’s a rule.
If you’re getting pressure to do what you did last time because you’re good at it, well, you’re your own worst enemy. There may be good profits from a repeat performance, but there is no personal growth.
Why not find someone with “don’t know” mind and teach them?
Find someone worthy of your time and attention and teach them how. The company gets the profits, an important person gets a new skill, and you get the satisfaction of helping someone grow.
No learning, no growth. That’s a rule.
No teaching, no learning. That’s a rule, too.
If you know what to do, it’s because you have a static mindset. The world has changed, but you haven’t. You’re walking an old cowpath. It’s time to try something new.
Seek out “don’t know” mind.
If you don’t know what to do, it’s because you recognize that the old way won’t cut it. You know have a forcing function to follow. Follow your fear.
No fear, no growth. That’s a rule.
Embrace the “don’t know” mind. It will help you find and follow your fear. And don’t shun your fear because it’s a leading indicator of novelty, learning, and growth.
Image credit: Pixabay
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It’s a meme and my new favorite euphemism for getting dumped/fired (as in, “There was a rapid unscheduled disassembly of our relationship.” Thank you, social media, for this gem)
It’s also spurred dozens of conversations with corporate leaders and innovation teams about the importance of defining success, the purpose of experiments, and the necessity of risk.
Define Success so You Can Identify Failure
The dictionary defines “fail (verb)” as “be unsuccessful in achieving one’s goal.”
But, as I wrote last week, using your definition of success to classify something as a failure assumes you defined success correctly.
Space X didn’t define success as carrying “two astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon,” Starship’s ultimate goal.
Big picture (but a bit general) – Validating “whether the design of the rocket system is sound.”
Ideal outcome – “Reach an altitude of 150 miles before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii 90 minutes [after take-off].”
Base Case – Fly far enough from the launchpad and long enough to generate “data for engineers to understand how the vehicle performed.”
By defining multiple and internally consistent types of success, SpaceX inspired hope for the best and set realistic expectations. And, if the rocket exploded on the launchpad? That would be a failure.
Know What You Need to Learn so You Know What You Need to Do
This was not the first experiment SpaceX ran to determine “whether the design of the rocket system was sound.” But this probably was the only experiment they could run to get the data they needed at this point in the process.
You can learn a lot from lab tests, paper prototypes, and small-scale experiments. But you can’t learn everything. Sometimes, you need to test your idea in the wild.
And this scares the heck out of executives.
As the NYT pointed out, “Big NASA programs like the Space Launch System…are generally not afforded the same luxury of explode-as-you-learn. There tends to be much more testing and analysis on the ground — which slows development and increases costs — to avoid embarrassing public failures.”
Avoiding public failure is good. Not learning because you’re afraid of public failure is not.
So be clear about what you need to learn, all the ways you could learn it, and the trade-offs of private, small-scale experiments vs. large-scale public ones. Then make your choice and move forward.
Have Courage. Take a Risk
“Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward,” Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator.
“Great risk” is scary. Companies do not want to take great risks (see embarrassing public failure).
“Calculated risk” is smart. It’s necessary. It’s also a bit scary.
You take a risk to gain something – knowledge, money, recognition. But you also create the opportunity to lose something. And since the psychological pain of losing is twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining, we tend to avoid risk.
But to make progress, you must take a risk. To take a risk, you need courage.
When faced with a risk, face it. Acknowledge it and how you feel. Assess it by determining the best, worst, and most likely scenarios. Ask for input and see it from other people’s perspectives. Then make your choice and move forward.
How to know when you’ve successfully failed
Two quotes perfectly sum up what failure en route to success is:
“It may look that way to some people, but it’s not a failure. It’s a learning experience.”- Daniel Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former high-level NASA official.
“Would it have been awesome if it didn’t explode? Yeah. But it was still awesome.” – Launch viewer Lauren Posey, 34.
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Companies have control over one thing: how to allocate their resources. Companies allocate resources by deciding which projects to start, accelerate, and stop; whom to allocate to the projects; how to go about the projects; and whom to hire, invest in, and fire. That’s it.
Taking a broad view of project selection to include starting, accelerating, and stopping projects, as a leader, what is your role in project selection, or, at a grander scale, initiative selection? When was the last time you initiated a disruptive yet heretical new project from scratch? When was the last time you advocated for incremental funding to accelerate a floundering yet revolutionary project? When was the last time you stopped a tired project that should have been put to rest last year? And because the projects are the only thing that generates revenue for your company, how do you feel about all that?
Without your active advocacy and direct involvement, it’s likely the disruptive project won’t see the light of day. Without you to listen to the complaints of heresy and actively disregard them, the organization will block the much-needed disruption. Without your brazen zeal, it’s likely the insufficiently-funded project won’t revolutionize anything. Without you to put your reputation on the line and decree that it’s time for a revolution, the organization will starve the project and the revolution will wither. Without your critical eye and thought-provoking questions, it’s likely the tired project will limp along for another year and suck up the much-needed resources to fund the disruptions, revolutions, and heresy.
Now, I ask you again. How do you feel about your (in)active (un)involvement with starting projects that should be started, accelerating projects that should be accelerated, and stopping projects that should be stopped?
And with regard to project staffing, when was the last time you stepped in and replaced a project manager who was over their head? Or, when was the last time you set up a recurring meeting with a project manager whose project was in trouble? Or, more significantly, when was the last time you cleared your schedule and ran toward the smoke of an important project on fire? Without your involvement, the over-their-head project manager will drown. Without your investment in a weekly meeting, the troubled project will spiral into the ground. Without your active involvement in the smoldering project, it will flame out.
As a leader, do you have your fingers on the pulse of the most important projects? Do you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to know which projects need help? And do you have the chops to step in and do what must be done? And how do you feel about all that?
As a leader, do you know enough about the work to provide guidance on a major course change? Do you know enough to advise the project team on a novel approach? Do you have the gumption to push back on the project team when they don’t want to listen to you? As a leader, how do you feel about that?
As a leader, you probably have direct involvement in important hiring and firing decisions. And that’s good. But, as a leader, how much of your time do you spend developing young talent? How many hours per week do you talk to them about the details of their projects and deliverables? How many hours per week do you devote to refactoring troubled projects with the young project managers? And how do you feel about that?
If you want to grow revenue, shape the projects so they generate more revenue. If you want to grow new businesses, advocate for projects that create new businesses. If you need a revolution, start revolutionary projects and protect them. And if you want to accelerate the flywheel, help your best project managers elevate their game.
Image credit: Pixabay
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For work that has not been done before, there’s no right answer. The only wrong answer is to say “no” to trying something new. Sure, it might not work. But, the only way to guarantee it won’t work is to say no to trying.
If innovation projects fail nine out of ten times, you can increase the number of projects you try or you can get better at choosing the projects to say no to. I suggest you say learn to say yes to the one in ten projects that will be successful.
If you believe that nine out of ten innovation projects will fail, you shouldn’t do innovation for a living. Even if true, you can’t have a happy life going to work every day with a ninety percent chance of failure. That failure rate is simply not sustainable. In baseball, the very best hitters of all time were unsuccessful sixty percent of the time, yet, even they focused on the forty percent of the time they got it right. Innovation should be like that.
If you’ve failed on ninety percent of the projects you’ve worked on, you’ve probably been run out of town at least several times. No one can fail ninety percent of the time and hold onto their job.
If you’ve failed ninety percent of the time, you’re doing it wrong.
If you’ve failed ninety percent of the time, you’ve likely tried to solve the wrong problems. If so, it’s time to learn how to solve the right problems. The right problems have two important attributes:
People will pay you if they are solved
They’re solvable
I think we know a lot about the first attribute and far too little about the second. The problem with solvability is that there’s no partial credit, meaning, if a problem is almost solvable, it’s not solvable. And here’s the troubling part: if a problem is almost solved, you get none of the money. I suggest you tattoo that one on your arm.
As a subject matter expert, you know what could work and what won’t. And if you don’t think you can tell the difference, you’re not a subject matter expert.
Here’s a rule to live by: Don’t work on projects that you know won’t work.
Here’s a corollary: If your boss asks you to work on something that won’t work, run.
If you don’t think it will work, you’re right, even if you’re not.
If it might work, that’s about right. If it will work, let someone else do it. If it won’t work, run.
If you’ve got no reason to believe it will work, it won’t.
If you can’t imagine it will work, it won’t.
If someone else says it won’t work, it might.
If someone else tries to convince you it won’t work, they may have selfish reasons to think that way.
It doesn’t matter if others think it won’t work. It matters what you think.
So, what do you think?
If you someone asks you to believe something you don’t, what will you do?
If you try to fake it until you make it, the Universe will make you pay.
If you think you can outsmart or outlast the Universe, you can’t.
If you have a bad feeling about a project, it’s a bad project.
If others tell you that it’s a bad project, it may be a good one.
Only you can decide if a project is worth doing.
It’s time for you to decide.
Image credit: Pixabay
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