Fail Often to Succeed Quickly

There's been a phrase in business for years that reads, "fail often to succeed quickly". If you think about it, it's quite the revolutionary statement when most of our environments work to keep things "safe".

What does a working environment that encourages change, mistakes, trials, and testing look like?

How can we foster an environment that encourages employee engagement to facilitate these practices?

First, I believe the leaders must model the way and set the example for what is meant by failing often to succeed quickly. Leaders must be willing to make calculated risks for the forward movement of their team. But leaders must also be transparent to show where they've failed and where they've succeeded. Leaders must also take responsibility for their mistakes but then be willing to share the victory of a success with their team.

Second, the environment must be set for a team to seek creativity. This comes in various forms, and again, typically encouraged by the leader. Great environments for creativity are rare but they are worth their weight in gold. These environments allow teams to explore and test; a place to build prototypes and work through problems.

Third, there must be a defined "win" or determined goal for what you've set out to achieve in the first place. If you don't have a defined goal then you'll never know if you've achieved the mark. Now that you've created and prototyped a design for something, test it, and make certain it meet the need of your original intent.

Environments and leadership that guide to these types of atmosphere's in the work place will inevitably succeed in the long run. This is what brings out team creativity and team ownership in the project.

Challenge: Evaluate your work environment and seek to build an atmosphere in location and morale that is open to Failing Often to Succeed Quickly.

Respond: How have you seen environments achieve this goal? What would an ideal environment look like for you?