“The performance culture really is in deep conflict with the learning culture” is the message from the cover story in BusinessWeekonline on the value of failures:
“Indeed, for a generation of managers weaned on the rigors of Six Sigma error-elimination programs, embracing failure — gasp! — is close to blasphemy. Stefan H. Thomke, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of Experimentation Matters, says that when he talks to business groups, “I try to be provocative and say: ‘Failure is not a bad thing.’ I always have lots of people staring at me, [thinking] ‘Have you lost your mind?’ That’s O.K. It gets their attention. [Failure] is so important to the experimental process.”
Download the introduction of Experimentation Matters here. The six principles for managing experimentation and explaining how they can be used to drive innovative development can be found here.