intelligent failure culture

At Fail Forward, we think about nudging the culture of organizations towards Intelligent Failure on three levels.

Level 1: Language and Mindsets

• Diagnose: Understand your goals and vision for what a culture of Intelligent Failure looks like as well as the organization’s context, history and dynamics at play. Identify important people to involve in the process.

• Deliver: Give an introductory talk or webinar to build awareness of our instinctive reactions, establish new language, and illustrate the mindset required for Intelligent Failure.

Level 2: Skills and Behaviours

• Diagnose: Uncover and articulate the small set of non-negotiable behaviours to sustain your change goals.

• Deliver: Facilitate interactive online or in-person skill building workshops and introduce the daily actions and behaviours to put the learning into practice.

Level 3: Processes and Norms

• Diagnose: Survey the organization to understand the challenges and barriers staff are facing as they strive to put Intelligent Failure into practice. Uncover the norms, processes or messaging that conflicts or otherwise makes a healthy relationship with failure difficult.

• Deliver: Work with your people, leaders and processes to explore how we align organizational structures (HR, IT, comms, etc.) to relieve challenges and make Intelligent Failure simply part of "how things get done around here".

Sustain

• Diagnose: Reflect on any progress, or lack thereof, towards achieving your goals and identify possible actions or adjustments to processes, norms and messaging.

• Deliver: Make needed adjustments and work with internal comms, people development, and executives to capture and tell new stories of those to who risked, failed and learned. As a memory aid, establish and prominently display a physical artifact, relic or ritual that represents the shift towards Intelligent Failure.