The Value of Failure in Innovation

In most areas of ordinary life, failure is something to be avoided whenever possible. Yet among those who study innovation closely, failure has gradually come to be seen in a surprisingly positive light. New ideas, by their very nature, are uncertain, and most serious attempts to do something genuinely new will simply not work the first time around. For exactly this reason, a real willingness to fail is increasingly regarded as （ 1 ） to genuine progress, rather than as something shameful.

History offers a great many striking examples. Some of the most useful products and medicines we have today were actually discovered almost by accident, when a careful experiment went wrong in an interesting and unexpected way. （ 2 ）, companies that harshly punish every single mistake may soon find that their employees quietly stop taking any risks at all, sticking only to safe, familiar ideas that bring no real breakthroughs. In trying so hard to avoid failure completely, such organizations can end up avoiding success as well.

This does not mean, of course, that all failure is somehow good. Experts carefully distinguish between simple careless mistakes and what they call "intelligent failure"—well-planned, thoughtful attempts that happen to fail but produce genuinely valuable lessons in the process. The key is to learn as much as possible from each failure and to avoid repeating the same one. （ 3 ） treating failure as something shameful that must be hidden away, many now argue, organizations should study it openly and honestly, as a rich and important source of knowledge.