StratBlog

Fast Company: “Look beneath the surface of many great business successes, and you’re likely to find a trail of failures that preceded them. Describing the painstaking trial-and-error process that led eventually to the creation of the incandescent light bulb—and General Electric—prolific inventor Thomas Edison said ‘I have not failed. I have merely found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’”

My comment:

Failure isn’t a strategy, but I’ve read that something like 90 percent of well-conceived strategic plans are never successfully executed. And two-thirds of corporate change efforts fail. So we’re all failing, most of the time. Having witnessed failing, dysfunctional organizations up close and personal, what has struck me most is how many corporate executives and directors gloss over seemingly obvious failures, creating an environment that inhibits useful change efforts. Designed to Fail is the phrase that often comes to mind.