Innovation Paradox The Success of Failure, the Failure of Success

Introduction What if your concepts of success and failure were to change dramatically? Suppose the paths to either turned out to be completely different from those you'd been shown? Imagine not even being able to distinguish one from the other, and entertain the idea that succeeding or failing is not the be-all and end-all of management.Today, nearly every act of management is put to this test. Did it succeed or did it fail? It's the wrong test. The nonstop innovation that organizations need to navigate a changing economy involves at least as many so-called setbacks as it does apparent victories. In a rapidly changing economy, you are likely to confront as much failure as success. Does that mean you will have failed? Only on your grandfather's terms. A new world calls for fresh concepts. As competition gives way to "coopetition," and intellectual capital rivals financial capital, new ways of doing business are necessary. Redefining success and failure is an essential part of that process.When ingrained attitudes about success and failure change, the meaning of every act of management changes, too. Changing those attitudes is not easy. At first, the idea that success and failure are not what we thought they were can be unsettling. Ultimately, however, it can be encouraging (as in being more courageous), freeing us to take bolder steps in life. Many already have, especially the entrepreneurs who see their failures as footsteps on the path toward success.The hardest practices to change are those we take for granted. It's the things that "everybody knows" that get us in biggest trouble. What we know for sure stands in the way of what we need to learn, and keeps us managing with outmoded tools. A world in which change is the only constant can't be navigated with tried-and-true approaches. These approaches encourage us to drive confidently into the twenty-first century at the wheel of a Studebaker.So it is with success and failure, as we usually use these words. When it comes to the revolutionary changes demanded by the evolving economy, these outmoded concepts serve little purpose. Today's most creative innovators realize that operating on the basis of yesterday's notions of success and failure only hamstrings and slows them down.Relying on conventional, outmoded ideas about success and failure stands in the way of your ability to innovate, compete, and stay ahead of the curve in a changing economy.That is the key message of this book. We hope it will help you manage better by challenging conventional assumptions about success and failure, sometimes turning them upside down, and, in doing so, discover new ways to manage that transcend them both. By the time you get to the last chapter, perhaps you will begin to wonder whether these terms belong in your leadership vocabulary at all. Copyright copy; 2003 by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes Chapter 1: The Success-Failure Fallacy One must be God to be able to distinguish successes from failures and not make mistakes. -- Anton Chekov A management consultant wrote a brief bio for his thirtieth college reunion. In it, he included the usual information: work, family, achievements. By most measures, this man was unusually successful. He was the father of thriving children, head of a respected think tank, and author of a best-selling book. After reviewing his paragraph, however, the consultant realized that it read more like a resume than an honest report to his classmates. "Why would I write such a stilted, half-true account of my life for friends who knew me when?" he asked himself.As a lark, the consultant decided to write a longer, more candid report about what his life had actually been like. It began: Because I didn't receive a single "A" in college, I couldn't get into medical school. Instead, I worked as a lifFarson, Richard E. is the author of 'Innovation Paradox The Success of Failure, the Failure of Success' with ISBN 9780743225939 and ISBN 0743225937.