the LGO journey

Why failure is a good thing. Really.

Failing is an essential part of the learning process.  In many of the places I’ve worked and studied, I’ve noticed many people with an enormous fear of failure.  As an engineering undergrad, I learned to fail very quickly.  Going down for the count with my fellow classmates, we learned quickly how little we knew and that we needed a new, different approach.  

This mindset has been an asset during the LGO program.  Not being afraid of failing, I’ve tried to immerse myself in classes and activities that are outside my comfort zone.  Additionally, I’ve been able to focus (or not focus) on the material that I know I am interested in and will help me down the road.  Although a bit selfish , this mentality helps me avoid the natural academic fear of not getting that 100 in every class.  Granted, given the collaborative nature of the LGO experience, I still owe it to my classmates to put in the effort in every one of my classes.

Taking this topic to my internship, I have been overwhelmed with the fear of failure that exists among many of the people I’ve worked with.  Everything is focused on planning, business plans and return on investment.  These are essential parts of business, but having such rigorous planning and vetting of every idea without trying anything seems to limit the frontline innovation of the companies I have worked for.  This is not distinct to Raytheon.  I’ve experienced this at McKinsey, GE and Pratt & Whitney.  People use these processes of planning and budgeting as an excuse to avoid simple experiments that will quickly tell you if something will work or fail.

Why don’t people want to experiment?  Because you fail a lot.  I’m experiencing that in my current project.  In the initial stages of trying to develop a kitting cart, people were hesitant to get involved in the idea generation and design stage of the process.  No one wanted to take the fall if it failed.  When people fail at Raytheon, and I imagine many other manufacturing environments, someone has to take the blame.  I know its not right, but its a reality. Luckily, I’m only there 6 months and went into it knowing I would fail at some level.  

We finally got this kitting cart in on Friday and its not perfect.  People quickly pointed out its shortcomings, but I was also quickly able to get them involved in the brainstorming process.  It took that initial failure and the leap to try something new to get everyone to a point where they are willing to now take part in the process.  The initial solution was not perfect, but it enabled everyone to see the next step in the process and not worry as much about failure.  Secretly, I’ve just got them to take part in continuous improvement.  Pick any one of the “cycles”, Plan-Do-Check-Act, etc… they are all the same.  And they work.  I’m just happy I made a small improvement and could bridge the gap from what science knows and business does.

People aren’t perfect.  Let them fail, and fail often.  As long as they have the capability to learn from it.  Here’s a great TED video on being wrong.

15 June 2011 · Comments