11
Planning to Fail

Before we get carried away, it's worth remembering that all phases of the Quest-Augmented Strategy model ought to happen concurrently. Futures are continually monitored, informing the experiments that matter. Unanticipated results from experiments may yield further questions worth exploring (meaning things flow between the four quadrants of the Quest-Augmented Strategy model — refer to figure 5.1 on p. 60). Likewise, the resulting intelligence from experiments informs strategic decision-making, and vice versa.^[1]

All of the elements of Quest-Augmented Strategy interact with each other (see figure 11.1, overleaf). It's not a linear, step-by-step process.

One thing that is consistent with this new way of working is failure.

But many organisations are woeful at handling failure. Failure becomes personalised, and career-limiting. In some cultures, it carries a stigma — ‘Two bad quarters and you're out!' The existing feedback loops only serve to reinforce compliance and non-thinking conformity. Any mistakes that do happen are quickly and quietly covered up — preventing the opportunity for shared learning. Curiosity is quashed — staff are simply there to slot into their cubicles and do their jobs. Customer feedback and complaints don't reach decision-makers, and the enterprise coasts along into the Inevitable Kraken of Doom.

Of course, I'm painting a somewhat extreme picture here. But another extreme has also crept into the vernacular — that of celebrating failure. I'm guilty of espousing this message. It's certainly preferable to the alternative, in which failure is shameful, but celebrating failure might be taking things a bit too far.^[2]

You see, failure is a spectrum.

FAILURE, AND THE NINE LAYERS OF HELL

I should probably point out that I wasn't raised within any particular religion, and so the word Hell doesn't carry much weight for me. I read it almost as though someone got distracted while saying hello. (I once played a Dungeons & Dragons module called ‘A Paladin in Hell', which was fun.)

In the Inferno (the first part of Dante's 14th-century epic poem The Divine Comedy), a protagonist ventures through nine circles or layers of Hell — from limbo to lust and gluttony right through to fraud and treachery.

You might be (quite rightly) thinking this doesn't seem like a barrel of laughs — but let's work with the ‘nine layers' bit. Also, if the word ‘hell' makes you feel uncomfortable, just replace it with another word. ‘Failure, and the nine layers of bad' perhaps? No … that doesn't work. Hmmm. While watching people choose to be offended by perspective is a secret hobby of mine, I think we're on the edge of something cool here. Let's abbreviate ‘failure-Hell' to ‘Fell'.

Yes! Fell works because this is what happens when you have fallen. It's also used to describe things of terrible evil or deadly ferocity (‘Fell beasts haunted her every step' ). So, cool bananas: failure+Hell = Fell.

The point here is that there are varying degrees of failure — some warrant a celebration of the learning achieved, some require changes to be made, and some, well … some suck (see figure 11.2, overleaf).

Let's start with the deeper layers. Don't celebrate stuff here.

Corruption and deviance — the ninth layer of Fell

This is where people are found to be wilfully sabotaging enterprise strategy, or are operating in conscious and deliberate violation of enterprise values, ethics and integrity. Here, I'm talking about corruption and folks who put the enterprise at obvious risk just to line their own pockets. This is the worst type of failure, and demands immediate inquisition — into not just why and how an individual or team did this, but also why and how they were able to. If this shit is happening, big and immediate cultural and leadership intervention is needed.

Let's look at an example of this type of failure. In 2013, evidence emerged that a group of men within the Australian Defence Force had engaged in activities that involved the creation of highly inappropriate material that was demeaning of women within the ranks. The response from the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison AO, was swift, direct and ruthless. In a video addressing all troops, he clearly stated that such actions are in direct contravention to every value the Australian Army stands for.

The Lieutenant General had stated, categorically and many times, that the Army needed to be an inclusive organisation. ‘I will be ruthless in ridding the Army of people who cannot live up to its values. And I need every one of you to support me in achieving this,' he explained. ‘The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.'

I could quote more, because this remains one of the greatest examples of clear and direct leadership in action. (A search using the Lieutenant General's name brings up the video of his address to the Australian Army.)

Suffice to say: if anyone has failed you at this level within an enterprise, your leadership response needs to be just as swift and effective.

Apathy — the eighth layer of Fell

This is perhaps the most insidious and common failure among enterprises — and it can extend from frontline staff right through to senior leadership. Apathy is the non-participation in meaningful progress. It's often masked with sound reasoning (at best) or ‘computer says no' reasoning (at worst).^[3]

Apathy is a bigger risk to large enterprises than failed experiments and projects. Apathy occurs when people are not even trying to deliver meaningful progress — they're simply going through the default motions. I've seen this happen in some organisations where senior leaders know they only have a couple of years left before they retire. Rather than rock the boat, or embrace the cognitive burden that comes from pioneering growth, they simply exist in a holding pattern — waiting it out until they retire.

This also happens at the frontline too — especially if staff have minimal visibility of meaningful progress (and no rituals to draw this into focus). Teams can figure out the minimum effort required to coast below the radar. Such laziness could be quite clever if channelled appropriately — but at this layer of Fell, it's not.

Pessimism and wilful ignorance — the seventh layer of Fell

This is only slightly better than apathy. Pessimism is where people prejudge something before collecting or reviewing the evidence. They are closed to possibility and any evidence that may challenge their perspective. They put the burden of proof upon others — magnifying the effort required to make meaningful progress, while ignoring it when it arrives. A pessimistic senior leader with influence can be catastrophic to the enduring relevance of an enterprise. If viable alternative strategic options are blocked or burdened with pessimism, any meaningful progress or growth will be stunted.

A far better approach — and something that is encouraged throughout a quest — is scepticism. Here, we reserve our judgement until we have reviewed the evidence. With scepticism, we are still engaged in the process — we're asking questions, and leveraging doubt effectively — but we're not blocking the path to progress with our own stubborn ignorance.

Note: you might think that optimism is the solution. But we need to be careful with this, too. Blind optimism — the automatic ‘yes' to new ideas and initiatives — can be just as dangerous as pessimism (the automatic ‘no'). This is because we may expose ourselves unnecessarily to risk, and put our trust in the faith that everything will work out (rather than the science of accumulated observation, evidence and reason).

Sceptical optimism is perhaps the ideal state to embrace. In this state, you can maintain an eye for what's possible, with an optimistic outlook, while still being grounded in curiosity and reason.

Righto — now let's shift to the middle layers of Fell. Here, things aren't so bad, but they still need to be changed.

Distraction — the sixth layer of Fell

This is only slightly better than apathy. Here, at least, people are busy doing the work. It's just that they're focused on the wrong things. They're busy being busy, ticking irrelevant boxes. Are they bad people? No. Are they doing this deliberately? Probably not.

But there is an issue here. If important projects aren't being completed, or if meaningful progress isn't happening, something needs to happen. Something needs to change.

It could be that unreasonable expectations are placed on leaders and their people. In retreat from the anxiety that is often inherent within challenging new work, they instead succumb to the Delusion of Progress by focusing on the default (and more familiar) activities.

It could also be that the scorecards by which your people are assessed (in terms of performance) — and the incentives that go with this — are heavily skewed to ‘business as usual' activities. If this is the case, people focusing on the activities that yield the most reward is only natural. As I explained earlier, incentivised goals are incredibly powerful. They'll create all sorts of behavioural distortions if we're not careful.

I remember working with one large enterprise that wanted to become ‘world leading' in customer experience. But, when reviewing their progress in this regard, they were surprised to see that no-one had engaged in activities to enhance customer experience. The reason? These activities were inefficient, and took time away from the bulk of their ‘balanced scorecards'. Part of any enterprise strategy requires being clear about the ‘lead wheel' that drives decision-making and culture. You can only choose one. You can't have it all, with equal priority given to customer intimacy, operational efficiency and product leadership. Something has got to be the lead wheel, and this will be reflected in the structures that influence your enterprise culture.

If people are getting distracted from the work that creates the most meaningful progress, something has got to change.

Process inadequacy — the fifth layer of Fell

Now here's another failure we may buck up against. It appears to be quite common, and relates to the previous ‘computer says no' element, but in this case, your people aren't apathetic — they're frustrated.

I see this happen where enterprise leaders want to collect more intel on their customers — which means having staff keep their customer relationship management (CRM) software updated. But if this software is clunky to use — if staff encounter issues entering, saving or searching for useful information — its uptake is highly likely to be patchy at best. The intention will become fragmented as people switch to their own spreadsheets or preferred CRMs.

Is this a failure? Yes! But it's not necessarily the fault of the user — and, in any event, searching for someone to blame is never the way to go about this. Instead, we get curious: how can we change this to make it work better? Where can we remove the friction? Is there a viable alternative option?

My guess: probably! Why not embark upon a quest to find it? Because I daresay that this will become an incoherency across many future possible contexts.

Lack of ability — the fourth layer of Fell

As you can see, the ‘failure' is lessening as we ascend each layer of Fell. Here, we encounter failure due to the fact that some folks may not have the skill or ability required to demonstrate desired behaviours or execute an intended course of action. Is it their issue? Partly, yes. But the solution is pretty simple — learn.

If a lack of ability is getting in the way of meaningful progress, we can either ensure that our people have access to the appropriate learning, or we can hire those who already possess the skills we need.

This gets interesting when we review the digital literacy of senior leadership teams and boards — which in many enterprises (but not yours, surely) is almost tragic. However, the opportunity to learn is right there. Thanks to the internet, learning has never been so easy, immediate and accessible.

A lack of ability is an understandable failure — the world is changing fast, and we are required to learn faster than ever before. But it's an easy thing to change.

Righto! Now we can start considering the learning from failures in the upper three layers of Fell, and whether these can actually be celebrated. Mind you, the introvert in me has an instinctual aversion to celebrations that involve loud music, balloons or forced participation. So, rather than summon the brass band, let's treat our celebration of the learning that comes from the following three failures as more of a quiet, reflective sort.

Because the reality is failure of any sort still kinda sucks. But these failures are the least sucky (in fact, they each harbour great good).

Failed experiments — the third layer of Fell

You won't need to flip back many pages to see that failure is a natural part of the experimentation process. The worst failures at this point are flawed methodologies or unanticipated biases. For example, when reviewing the evidence you have collected after observing an experiment, you may identify that the results suffered from confirmation bias. When you look back upon your focus group interviews and observations, you might see that questions were asked in a manner that could be considered leading — the question: ‘Why do you prefer using the new communications platform?', for example, assumes that people actually prefer it when, possibly, they detest it. Encountering such biases in experiments sucks, because you then need to review data with a caveat and a bigger note of caution.

However, reflecting on such mistakes only makes us better, and improves the quality of future research. This is why the peer-review process is so brutal in science — it makes for better research.^[4]

Considered quitting — the second layer of Fell

If you have collected enough evidence to suggest that ‘You know what, this ain't working', then quitting is a very viable option.

In fact, quitting is, in many ways, admirable.

This is not to say that perseverance isn't important — it is. But that applies to a higher order of things — like persevering in a quest towards enduring relevance.

But conventional motivational folklore would have you believe that ‘quitting is never an option'. It is. It always is.

And so, if something is not working for you — and if you've tried enough ways, and collected enough evidence to suggest it's not working — quitting is a smart move. Quitting is not about stopping — it's about letting go, so that you can progress.

A good scientist will engage in ‘considered quitting' if presented with enough compelling evidence. A good enterprise leader will also engage in considered quitting if a particular product or market — despite much effort and exploration — is not yielding the desired results.

Evidence-based quitting is very important when the thing you are striving for becomes no longer relevant. If we don't quit, we risk investing too much of our identity into the achievement of a particular goal. We ignore mounting contrary evidence and persist dogmatically in a doomed pursuit towards an increasingly irrelevant and unachievable goal (as per the seventh layer of Fell).^[5]

Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking (it's great, btw), points out that ‘theodicy' — the effort to maintain belief in a benevolent god, despite the prevalence of evil in the world — is occasionally used to describe the effort to maintain any belief in the face of contradictory evidence.

We don't want this sort of nonsense happening in enterprise leadership so, all things considered, considered quitting is something to be celebrated.^[6]

A lack of perfection — the first layer of Fell

If you don't believe this is a layer of failure-Hell — just try writing a book. Imperfections everywhere! This has been my world. Heck, what am I saying? This is my world. And I'm sure that, at many times, this is your world too.

This type of failure happens when things don't happen perfectly. You publish a book, only to find it has typos (like this one inevitably will — even after several rounds of personal and professional editing and multiple proofreaders). You launch a website and make a big announcement — only to find that one of the links is broken (even though you and your team checked Every Single Link multiple times). Or you only realise after working ridiculously hard to integrate new, user-requested features into the latest version of your software — getting the design right and smoothing out the user experience — that the software has a bug in it. Ugh!

You can look at this in several ways. Life is perfectly imperfect. Perfection is asymptotic and, therefore, unachievable. ‘You did your best, and that is enough' (bah! ). Here's what I like to bring it back to: constructive discontent.

If you're making any meaningful progress, you always have more to do. Progress — and the game we're playing — is infinite. When we make peace with the fact that a discrepancy will always exist between where things are and where things could be, we become a bit more open to this kind of failure.

But perpetual discontent — even if it's constructive — is hardly fun. This is why rituals play such an important role. We'll explore these in part VII, but one ritual can be useful in celebrating the learning that comes from a lack of perfection, and so is worth mentioning here. In fact, it's the one thing that makes constructive discontent bearable — gratitude.

When all you are seeing are the incredibly small mistakes and minor stuff-ups — and when cognitive distortion is blowing these out of proportion — gratitude pulls us back into perspective. This is helped further when we ritualise it, and have others to draw our focus to it. I'm incredibly lucky to have my partner, Kim, my business manager, Bianka, and some of my professional colleagues and friends to pull me up on this. I hope I do the same.^[7]

I wonder — who on your team calls your focus to gratitude?

YOU WILL BE TESTED

Pioneering is hard work. You (and your people) will be tested. The good elements of failure — failed experiments, considered quitting and imperfection — will occur. Regularly, if you're doing well.

If you've set up an intrapreneurial hub or a strategic innovation unit, or are running an embedded startup with a remit to generate viable alternative strategic options for possible future incoherencies, you'll need to help ensure that it is safe to fail in this critical work. If you try to impose default enterprise structures on these processes, you'll end up crushing the very magic of pioneering work.

Don't let this new work suffer from the Curse of Efficiency. Protect it.^[8]

Remember: pioneering leadership is about exploring, finding and unlocking viable alternative strategic options. But this occurs within the context of an enterprise that is focused on executing the existing business model — today.

Some will see this exploration as a threat to their personal interests. Great companies like Apple, Google and Facebook know that if you're not prepared to cannibalise your own business, someone else will. Indeed, some of the viable alternative options we find upon our quest might mean cannibalising elements of our own business. These are the very things we worked hard to establish in the past — and some folks will be quite attached to them.

And so, a friction will always exist between these two worlds — between the pressing need to be efficient today and the imperative to stay relevant tomorrow.

Default thinking is the goliath with the home-ground advantage.

It has familiarity, predictability and precedent. It easily allows people to feel ‘in control' and alleviates the angst of uncertainty. It generates quick wins and clear results. With default thinking, we can tick boxes, and feel a sense of progress.

Don't be deluded. Pioneering leadership is the single most important imperative for all enterprises today. It's a hero's journey. It takes courage, and the ability to persist through failure, but the results are worth it — viable alternative options, and the promise of meaningful progress, new value and enduring relevance.