Page 191 - Free the Idea Monkey

DAVID STRATEGY #1: BEING JUST RIGHT ENOUGH
There is an old axiom about business leaders needing to be right

only 51 percent of the time. The practice of constant experimentation
is as fundamental to research as it is to innovation: try, fail, learn;
try, fail, learn; try, succeed, repeat (see Chapter 6).

When you are small, you benefit from a quick cycle of experi-
mentation and learning. When you are big, the budgets, culture and
shareholders all stand in your way. If you are a Goliath, you may
look at your innovation team and notice that nothing revolutionary
is hitting the market. If that is the case, chances are they are afraid
of failing. After all, if nothing launches, nothing can fail, and there-
fore they can’t be blamed. (So from a personal survival point of view,
within a corporation it is better to kill an idea than to launch it.)

As a (Ring)leader, you must demand small, controlled launches
that allow your teams to learn, build courage and taste success.
Imagine what would happen if you told your team that it was okay to
break even, or (gasp) lose money in the short term, if they were rea-
sonably sure they would learn enough from the failure to increase the
chances of succeeding next time around? Rather than imagining it,
look down the street. That’s the strategy David & Co. are employing.

176 T H E D A V I D S T R A T E G I E S