The Innovation Paradox: The Success of Failure, the Failure of Success

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Came across Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation, written by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes.

An interesting discussion on the need of failures. According to the authors, in a rapidly changing economy managers will confront at least as much failure as success. Does that mean they'll have failed? Only by their grandfathers' definition of failure.

Both success and failure are steps toward achievement, say the authors. After all, Coca-Cola's renaissance grew directly out of its New Coke debacle, and severe financial distress forced IBM to completely reinvent itself.

Management by trial and error. All the senior marketers we invited to a marketing panel on innovation agreed that every successful innovation they had realized was based on many projects that never made it.

Isn't it a shame that while we all know this is true, so few of us are prepared to accept credits for the successes as well as the "failures"?

- Michele Mees, The House of Marketing

Human Being Company's Book of the Month

Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation by Richard Farson, Ralph Keyes

Success in today's business economy demands nonstop innovation. But fancy buzzwords, facile lip service, and simplistic formulas are not the answer. Only an entirely new mindset -- a new attitude toward success and failure -- can transform managers' thinking, according to Richard Farson, author of the bestseller Management of the Absurd, and Ralph Keyes, author of the pathbreaking Chancing It: Why We Take Risks, in this provocative new work.

According to Farson and Keyes, the key to this new attitude lies in taking risks. In a rapidly changing economy, managers will confront at least as much failure as success. Does that mean they'll have failed? Only by their grandfathers' definition of failure. Both success and failure are steps toward achievement, say the authors. After all, Coca-Cola's renaissance grew directly out of its New Coke debacle, and severe financial distress forced IBM to completely reinvent itself.