Experiment and Take Risks by Constantly Generating Small Wins and Learning From Mistakes

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Chapter 8

• Experiment and Take Risks by Constantly
  Generating Small Wins and Learning From Mistakes

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Quotable Quotes

• David Hare, the playwright, tells a great story
  about Joe Papp, the former director of the New
  York Shakespeare Festival
•  
• The greatest thing Joe ever did was when we did
  a play called The Knife. There was a big party
  afterward and the reviews were read. The Times
  review was absolutely dismal. He read it out loud
  line by line and the whole room went completely
  silent. It meant wed probably lose over a
  million dollars. At the end he said, That is not
  what I call a good review. Then he turned to me
  and said, Well, what do you want to do in my
  theater next?

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Quotable Quotes

• "It's self-evident that if we can't take the risk
  of saying or doing something wrong, our
  creativity goes right out the window . . . The
  essence of creativity is not the possession of
  some special talent, it is much more the ability
  to play . . . In organizations where mistakes are
  not allowed, you get two types of
  counterproductive behavior. First, since
  mistakes are bad if they're committed by people
  at the top, people can pretend that no mistake
  has been made. So it doesn't get fixed. Second,
  if they're committed by people lower down in the
  organization, mistakes get concealed."
• John Cleese

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Success and Failure

• (p. 214) Studies of the innovation process make
  this point Success does not breed success. It
  breeds failure. It is failure which breeds
  success.
• Q What does this mean? How could success breed
  failure?

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3 Keys to Risk Taking Innovation

• Initiate incremental steps and small wins.
• Learn from mistakes.
• Promote psychological hardiness.

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Initiate Incremental Steps and Small Wins How
Do Small Wins Work?

• (p. 209-211)The small wins process enables
  leaders to build constituents commitment to a
  course of action . . . Leaders start with actions
  that are within their control . . . that are
  doable, and that can get the ball rolling . . .
  leaders know they must show something happening.
  . . Small wins forms the basis of a consistent
  pattern of winning that attracts people who want
  to be allied with a successful venture. . . Small
  wins also deters opposition for a simple reason
  its hard to argue with success. . . Once a win
  has been accomplished, natural forces are set in
  motion that favor stepping out toward another
  small win. . . When leaders deliberately
  cultivate a strategy of small wins, they actively
  make people feel like winners and make it easier
  for people to want to go along with their
  requests.

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Learn from Mistakes

• (p. 216) Learning requires tolerating people who
  make mistakes, and it requires tolerating some
  inefficiencies and failures. Learning requires
  letting people try things theyve never done
  before things they probably wont be good at the
  first time around. It means accepting the
  necessary trade-off between proficiency and
  learning. . . We never go first to Who screwed
  up? but always focus on What was the problem,
  and how can we solve it or learn from it.

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Learning to LeadA Workbook on Becoming a
Leaderby Warren Bennis Joan Goldsmith

• What were the messages about failure in your
  family?
• How were you treated when you failed?
• How have you perpetuated these early views in
  your own personal life or relationships? In your
  professional life? In the lives of your children?

9
Learning to LeadA Workbook on Becoming a
Leaderby Warren Bennis Joan Goldsmith

• What were the messages about failure in your
  family?
• How were you treated when you failed?
• How have you perpetuated these early views in
  your own personal life or relationships? In your
  professional life? In the lives of your children?
• Which leaders in your life (that you have
  personally known) have influenced you the most?
• How did they react to your failures?
• What are the ways you would want others to
  respond to you when you fail?
• Given these memories, describe how you would want
  yourself to react to the failings of those around
  you.

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Promote Psychological Hardiness

• People who are psychologically hardy make these
  assumptions about themselves
• They feel a strong sense of control and feel they
  can direct the outcome of whats going on around
  them.
• They have a strong sense of commitment in
  whatever they were doing. They are unlikely to
  engage in denial or feel disengaged, bored, or
  empty.
• The feel strong in the face of challenges,
  believing that personal improvement and
  fulfillment comes through the continual process
  of learning from both negative and positive
  experiences.
• READ p. 221-222 (Foster Hardiness)

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Commitment 6 Experiment and Take Risks by
Constantly Generating Small Wins Learning from
Mistakes

• Set up little experiments and develop models.
• Make it safe for others to experiment.
• Break mindsets.
• Break it up and break it down.
• Give people choices.
• Accumulate yeses.
• Admit your mistakes.
• Conduct pre- and post-mortems for every project.