Driving innovation from the top
- Gurvinder Singh
- Mar 1
- 2 min read
Making mistakes causes friction, and friction leads to learning.
Acting on that learning is experience.
Friction causes dissonance. That is why we avoid experimentation and mistakes, but mistakes occur even when we do not want them.
Leaders want innovation, but most of them and their organisations rarely forgive mistakes. This is why, in addition to trying to make processes and approaches foolproof, leaders should actively seize opportunities to learn from mistakes by creating a suitable environment.
As a leader, this was my highly successful approach in creating an innovative organisation.
I introduced into our half yearly appraisal system of manager's performance the question "Tell me the top 10 mistakes you made this past half year?"
Naturally managers claimed that they had not made any mistakes except the glaring ones that everyone in the organisation could see. Now I knew it was impossible to function without making mistakes especially if you are trying to innovate products, processes, etc. Of course there were some managers who were merely warming their seats and never stepping out of their secure comfort zone of not innovating or experimenting.
I refused to give them a green flag and said that their promotions and increments would be held up until they could identify the top 10 mistakes they had made.
After a month the bad news started trickling out and in a couple of months we had a lot of it. But what at first appeaared to be bad news was really good news, for we had discovered what we could do to better ourselves and our organisation.
Then I asked them to explain to me what they had learnt from their mistakes and what they planned to do about it?
After about a month they came back back with what they planned to with their learning. This helped me understand who was capable of evolving further and who was not. The tide of this approach lifted all the boats & everyone's confidence & capacity to innovate increased.
This was one of the key actions that helped us evolve into a 'world class organisation', always innovating, always evolving and always having fun in the challenge.
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Ref: G1001
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