Organizational failure – to stigmatize or reward?

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organizatonConsider the following examples:-

 

Nestlé’s chocolate-flavored drink Choglit, OK Soda or Surge, New Coke, Sony Corp.’s The eVilla, General Motors Corp.’s The Pontiac Aztek, The CueCat, Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.’s offering “a bed in business”. Can you draw a similarity?

 

When Columbia was destroyed, NASA conducted an exhaustive investigation to realize that the loss of a piece of foam insulation triggered such an explosion.  This was overlooked a year before when the space shuttle Atlantis was launched. What was the reason? The Atlantis mission was a success, and Columbia was a catastrophe.

 

Organizations that stigmatize failure may run the risk of jeopardising future organizational improvement because major breakthroughs depend on them.

 

Research shows that knowledge gleaned from failure is retained longer and at a far better rate, almost 89% of the learning from failures while only 34% from successful events.

 

Have you ever wondered why VC’s often look for managers with a setback, to run startups? Failure is so crucial to the experimental process. Probably, that’s why true, breakthrough innovation — an imperative in today’s fiercely competitive world, is so hard. Organizational leaders should, therefore, treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging open discussions and sharing of information.

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