The Positive Side to Failure: Rewarding Risk

Since entering the College of Business here at Illinois State University, almost all of my professors have encouraged their classrooms to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal. Reluctantly I have, and I only say reluctantly because there is so much information to sort through, and so many issues around the world in countries that I didn’t even know existed. But never the less, I make an attempt to look through each day’s paper. Last month I stumbled upon this article titled “Better Ideas Through Failure,” and I found that this article has so much to offer in regards to everything we’re learning in this class.

            “Better Ideas Through Failure” is essentially what it sounds like, companies around the United States are beginning to invite, acknowledge, and reward creative and innovative failures. This seems like a perfect idea to me. I am terrified of doing something incorrectly, which often times leads me to stand aside and do nothing at all. But if I were to work in an environment that saw creative failure as something positive I think there are many good ideas I could share. Rewarding employees for doing their job, not just doing it “right,” can change the way employees perceive the organization they are in. Motivation and creativity must be at their peak in organizations that thrive off the failure of new ideas. Although an idea may sound good, it may not work that first time, but allowing yourself to even try the first idea, give you the opportunity to tweak things here and there that may have gone wrong, ultimately leading you to the best, most successful advertising scheme the world has ever seen! With optimism like that circulating around an office work attitudes and job performance are bound to be higher.

            I suppose this somewhat goes along with Expectancy Theory in the idea that when an employee puts in effort will it gain them higher performance which will lead to favorable outcomes and rewards? I feel like in this case yes. Employees are encouraged to be creative and innovative, and the more ideas they have and the more effort they put into their work will bring them closer to that next goal of high performance. Even a not perfect idea can lead to high performance, or recognition of work from a superior, and the outcome can lead to a reward of self-gratification or even something tangible. The article discusses the company Grey New York and they have recently adapted giving out a quarterly award “Heroic Failure” to an employee to demonstrate their creativity and taking a big, edgy risk.

            When failure is not perceived as negative, great changes can be made. Do you think that adapting a thought process of “better ideas through failure” is a realistic way for companies to become more innovative in the constantly changing market? Also, would this idea work well within large groups, small groups, or simply stick with the individual’s ideas? There are so many ways to get people to switch on their creative side, and I think this article perfectly demonstrates how well it would work in the corporate world.  

-- Kaitlin Reichel

Shellenbarger, Sue. "Better Ideas Through Innovation." The Wall Street Journal. Sept 27, 2011. D1,D4.