How to Incentivize Risk Taking in Your Organization
Guest Post by Daron K. Roberts Daron K. Roberts is a Harvard Law grad turned NFL coach and author of ‘Call an Audible: Let My Pivot from Harvard Law to NFL Coach Inspire Your Transition.’ After spending seven years with professional football, he created the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation at the University of Texas. Now Daron helps companies enhance the leadership capacity of their top executives.
Fail fast.
Life is messy and embracing failure is a tough proposition. Creativity is a descendant of failure, and the most enduring ideas, products and movements owe their genesis to generations of mistakes and misfires. But is it a reality? Consider this, our educational system creates a winner-take-all mentality. Did you score a 5 on your AP exam? Did you get into Stanford? What do you want to be when you grow up (can we start a global petition to ban this question for the human vernacular?)?These types of questions dominate the conversational landscape of our educational system. The implicit right-wrong dichotomy creates an unrealistic pressure for people to circle the right answer in every phase of their lives.
In reality, the competing demands of meeting quarterly targets and following the explicit directives of our boards leave very little room for innovation, for trial and error, for failure.
The Balance That is “Social Innovation”
Oftentimes we are caught between two dangerous poles: mission creep and mission myopia. Mission creep takes individuals and organizations farther and farther away from a core purpose. The attraction of new programs and media coverage spurs organizations to overstep its budgetary and workforce bounds. Mission myopia, on the other hand, is a distant cousin to mission creep. New opportunities for growth and expansion get scuttled in the name of strict adherence to the strategic plan.
Somewhere in the expanse that lies between these two extremes is the sweet spot for your organization. Are members of your team too risk-averse? Is there a feeling that any upside gained by creating new products or techniques are outweighed by the downside of potentially failing or “wasting time”?
How to Encourage Creativity and Embrace Failure
Here are a few steps that you can take to “fail fast” with your team.
Write and Share Your Rejection Résumé
Step 1: Print your gleaming résumé.
Step 2: Review your accomplishments.
Step 3: Erase all of your accomplishments.
Step 4: Replace erased accomplishments with rejections.
Step 5: Share your rejection résumé with your team.
Here’s a great example from the Washington Post. So for instance, in the “Education” section, list all of the undergraduate and graduate programs that you were rejected from. Under your “Honors” category, list all of the fellowships, prizes and awards that you did not receive.
This exercise is a good way to remind yourself of your own humanity. Second, the process of reviewing your “failings” in life serves as a shot of courage that you can withstand tough blows in life and emerge victorious. Share this rejection résumé with your team and watch the chain reaction. Soon, other team members will craft rejection résumés of their own.
Install an Idea Board
This is an easy one. Buy a large white board and an array of dry erase markers. Then, encourage employees to describe or illustrate their best (or worst) ideas for your team. This technique is an easy way to create a comfort level with idea generation, and it works especially well if you select a few ideas each month to highlight and support.
Create Failure Fridays
Pick a day of the week (preferably Friday) and celebrate team failures. Did someone abuse the “Reply All” button? Did a potential new strategy erupt into flames? Give your team a safe space to broadcast projects or ideas that sounded better in paper than practice.
Failure Innovation Begins with You
Simply put, you are the key to spurring creativity and risk-taking on your team. Create a safe space for people to articulate their fears by highlighting your own failures and provide outlets for team members to share their big ideas. Innovation begins with you.
Don’t miss Daron’s keynote on Thursday, 9/8 at the Mission Capital Conference! Take Risks, Fail Faster, Recover, Repeat
Tackling the wicked problems of the world requires tenacity and the understanding that failure will be an inevitable part of the journey. Daron Roberts will share insights from coaching NFL and college football and teaching leadership classes at UT as he explores the competitive advantage of risk-taking and disruptive innovation.