00:00:01
[Music]
00:00:08
[Music]
00:00:20
I'm Steve Cobin executive director of
00:00:22
Wharton digital press and today I have
00:00:25
with me Paul Shoemaker who's the author
00:00:27
of brilliant mistakes finding success on
00:00:29
the side of failure Paul welcome thanks
00:00:32
for having me Steve okay a brilliant
00:00:34
mistake sounds like an oxymoron how can
00:00:36
a mistake be brilliant well if you learn
00:00:39
more from the mistake than it cost you
00:00:41
it might actually get to be brilliant
00:00:43
but I recognize there's a bit of a
00:00:44
paradox in the title so I think it is an
00:00:47
action that you take or a prediction you
00:00:49
make that turns out to be not right and
00:00:51
this this hurts you initially and then
00:00:54
but it also opens up new Vistas and it
00:00:56
may result in Innovation Discovery you
00:00:59
see starting to see the world
00:01:01
differently or yourself differently and
00:01:03
this could be in a small way you get
00:01:04
fired from a job unexpectedly and it
00:01:07
prompts a lot of learning or you enter a
00:01:09
new market or a new technology and
00:01:11
initially many things don't work out
00:01:12
well but then the benefits eventually of
00:01:15
having made quote that mistake more than
00:01:17
compensate for its cost that would
00:01:20
qualify as a brilliant mistake what are
00:01:22
some examples can you give me an example
00:01:24
of a brilliant mistake sure I think uh a
00:01:27
common example is that people start
00:01:29
after they leave uh school they start to
00:01:31
work and they take a job and they may
00:01:33
think they're doing wonderfully well and
00:01:35
then they go to their boss and they
00:01:36
insist on a raise they may get fired on
00:01:39
the spot and as they go home to you know
00:01:41
think about it they say boy that was
00:01:42
dumb why did I do that but it may also
00:01:45
be as they start to think about it more
00:01:47
deeply once the emotion has subsided uh
00:01:49
they really start to think about so why
00:01:51
did I have such a distorted view of how
00:01:53
people perceive me and what my added
00:01:56
value is in that company and this may
00:01:59
get people on to the right path and and
00:02:01
many I think successful people have had
00:02:03
those experiences can you another
00:02:05
example of a brilliant mistake well I I
00:02:08
think that of course in science there's
00:02:09
many right there's many scientists from
00:02:11
Fleming who discovered penicillin by
00:02:13
allowing a certain amount of sloppiness
00:02:15
in his in his laboratory and because he
00:02:18
did that he had a wider range of
00:02:20
observation and noticed spores coming
00:02:22
into a dish which then led to the
00:02:24
discovery of you know penicillin well
00:02:26
Paul what got you interested in
00:02:29
brilliant mistake in the first place
00:02:30
what led you to develop the ideas in
00:02:32
your new book well first of all I've
00:02:34
made a lot of mistakes in my life and
00:02:36
there's a rationalization process where
00:02:38
you want to believe they're brilliant
00:02:40
but they aren't so the topic is is
00:02:42
intriguing for anybody who reflects I
00:02:43
think on their own life but what really
00:02:46
intrigued me is the following if you ask
00:02:48
successful people in business what they
00:02:50
learn to most from they tend to say my
00:02:52
mistakes right uh and then the next
00:02:55
question that I ask is so why not make a
00:02:57
few more mistakes if they so valuable
00:02:59
why leave this up to
00:03:01
chance and they don't have a good answer
00:03:03
to that question and I didn't have a
00:03:04
good answer to that question either and
00:03:07
now I think I'm confused at a slightly
00:03:08
higher level about that
00:03:10
question in your book brilliant mistakes
00:03:13
you argue that managers and organization
00:03:15
should make more mistakes they should
00:03:17
make mistakes on purpose why do you say
00:03:19
that yes and I have to say that of
00:03:21
course with a little with a caveat you
00:03:23
have to do it carefully and
00:03:25
strategically well I think that most
00:03:27
people are risk averse which means that
00:03:29
they play it quite safe and they don't
00:03:31
explore as widely around their
00:03:33
viewpoints their mental models as they
00:03:36
perhaps should organizations exacerbate
00:03:39
this because they reward people for
00:03:41
results most of the time not so much you
00:03:43
know good intentions or good process for
00:03:46
exploration so I think leaders who want
00:03:48
to um compete on Innovation and that's
00:03:50
an important caveat if your intention is
00:03:52
to change the business model if you're
00:03:54
in a new environment I think you should
00:03:56
have more tolerance for mistakes than is
00:03:58
typically the case in companies
00:04:00
you argue though that companies should
00:04:02
make m not just have more tolerance for
00:04:04
mistakes but make them on purpose what
00:04:06
do you mean by that yeah that is indeed
00:04:08
a higher level of making mistakes I
00:04:10
think you should first start by mining
00:04:12
the existing mistakes very well because
00:04:14
most of the time we run away from our
00:04:16
mistakes we don't want to think about it
00:04:18
it's an unpleasant experience but once
00:04:20
you start to realize that mistakes are
00:04:22
are Treasures are Gifts of sorts and
00:04:24
then you say now how can I create
00:04:26
ecologies or environments where this
00:04:28
happens more uh more naturally more
00:04:30
fully and in our own company we did an
00:04:33
example where we would routinely reject
00:04:37
proposals that came in for for projects
00:04:39
that that we had no connection to over
00:04:41
the transom we thought this was a waste
00:04:43
of time to respond to those
00:04:44
opportunities and what we did once is
00:04:46
list a whole bunch of assumptions that
00:04:48
was made by this management team in that
00:04:50
company assumptions about how you run
00:04:52
the business you know uh and this was
00:04:54
one of them that we don't respond to
00:04:55
requests for proposals rfps that we have
00:04:58
no connection to and it turned out that
00:05:01
it was an easy way to test that uh
00:05:02
whether that was a correct assumption
00:05:04
and when we did to our Delight it turned
00:05:07
out that some of these um unsolicited
00:05:09
proposals turned out to be quite
00:05:11
profitable but it wouldn't have started
00:05:13
by unless we started to list some of
00:05:15
these key assumptions so you
00:05:17
deliberately decided to make a mistake
00:05:19
yes and look at uh proposals that came
00:05:21
in over the transom which you wouldn't
00:05:23
have previously and yes and under the
00:05:25
old frame of mind if we had done a cost
00:05:27
benefit analysis or even more
00:05:28
sophisticated have like a rate of return
00:05:30
on the investment we would have rejected
00:05:32
it we've said this is not a good thing
00:05:34
to do but just like David oakie uh
00:05:36
brilliantly would run advertisements
00:05:39
that he thought would not work to test
00:05:41
his own views about advertising so I
00:05:43
think you make the best decision you can
00:05:45
whether you hiring people or you're
00:05:46
launching products but if you have been
00:05:48
hammered by life a little bit and
00:05:49
accumulated some wisdom about also the
00:05:52
limits of your knowledge then there
00:05:54
should be a part of your brain that says
00:05:56
you know I don't have all the answers I
00:05:57
don't have a full understanding of the
00:05:59
situation so you should permit a little
00:06:01
bit to have discovery that is seems
00:06:04
accidental but really is maybe strategic
00:06:06
as well now in your book brilliant
00:06:08
mistakes you argue that there's certain
00:06:10
sorts of mistakes that you should make
00:06:12
but you don't want to make mistakes that
00:06:13
are going to bankrupt the company that
00:06:15
are catastrophic how do you distinguish
00:06:17
how do you decide which mistakes are
00:06:19
worth making to learn so so after the
00:06:22
fact it's easier of course you could do
00:06:23
a cost benefit analysis of the many
00:06:25
mistakes you've made in your life and
00:06:26
you say were they high cost where they
00:06:28
high benefit low cost low benefit and
00:06:30
that gives you right there four
00:06:31
different combinations so you don't want
00:06:33
to make more of the high cost mistakes
00:06:35
in a personal situation driving your car
00:06:38
into a tree and ending up in a
00:06:40
wheelchair you don't learn enough from
00:06:42
that to justify it there's also mistakes
00:06:44
that are very high cost having a divorce
00:06:47
or indeed bankrupting a company but the
00:06:49
lessons can also be enormous can be
00:06:51
transformational Etc and I think ahead
00:06:54
of time it's sometimes hard to make that
00:06:55
determination so I think you have to
00:06:57
look at the conditions that favor these
00:06:59
iant kind of mistakes and I think those
00:07:01
conditions are if you have a lot of
00:07:03
uncertainty in the in the problem you're
00:07:05
not the world has changed on you so
00:07:08
probably your old ways of thinking are
00:07:09
not quite the right ones then you have
00:07:11
to create more space to discover new
00:07:14
approaches and if you don't do it others
00:07:16
will yeah how do you turn a mistake into
00:07:18
a into success how do you turn failure
00:07:20
into success well some people sort of
00:07:23
would say that once you have made a
00:07:24
decision the die is cast and now the
00:07:27
consequences you don't control and and
00:07:29
was a bad decision or a good decision
00:07:31
but it's determined at the moment of
00:07:32
choice but I think most managers realize
00:07:35
that you know there's so much
00:07:36
uncertainty that the first decision is
00:07:38
just that the first decision and you
00:07:39
have many opportunities whether you hire
00:07:41
people or you launch a new product to
00:07:43
Midstream make mid-stream adjustments so
00:07:46
these after the decision interventions
00:07:49
that happen can turn what seem to be
00:07:51
initially not a good decision into a
00:07:53
better one just by intervening and the
00:07:55
learnings that come from it apart from
00:07:57
the immediate benefits the longer term
00:07:59
learning can also be of such a magnitude
00:08:01
that it dwarfs the original cost uh what
00:08:05
surprised you the most in writing the
00:08:07
book well as I thought about it first of
00:08:09
all that it is a complex subject that it
00:08:11
is a controversial subject very few
00:08:13
people want to say they favor mistakes I
00:08:16
was also struck however that many very
00:08:18
successful people have a not only a
00:08:21
tolerant approach to mistakes uh from in
00:08:23
in music or in sports but they actually
00:08:26
embrace them to some extent they have an
00:08:27
intuitive sense that these mistakes are
00:08:30
as uh Joyce put it they are portals of
00:08:34
Discovery these are new venues new
00:08:36
avenues for having you know insights
00:08:38
that otherwise you wouldn't get and
00:08:39
that's the key the mistake is an
00:08:41
expensive way to get to new insight but
00:08:43
if that is the only way to get to that
00:08:45
inside it may still be worth you know
00:08:47
pursuing so that was one that that um
00:08:49
very successful people practiced this
00:08:52
the other thing that intrigued me was
00:08:54
that there's actually a rational basis
00:08:55
for you can actually build a case for
00:08:57
making mistakes either through portfol
00:08:59
folio theory that you put in things that
00:09:01
go against conventional wisdom or a sort
00:09:03
of an options perspective that you're
00:09:06
buying options on on future learning it
00:09:09
is a difficult subject uh I certainly
00:09:11
don't have the last word on this I feel
00:09:13
I'm scratching the surface but I think
00:09:16
in this time where many companies have
00:09:18
made great mistakes because of the
00:09:20
global recession and the financial
00:09:21
crisis I think this is a time that
00:09:23
really we should try to say so what have
00:09:25
we learned from this this is a gift for
00:09:27
many companies how robust is their
00:09:28
business model what can they uh what
00:09:31
should they do differently and so I
00:09:33
think the maybe the book was a mistake
00:09:36
but we have to wait 10 years to see if
00:09:38
enough learnings come out of it but I
00:09:40
think it surprised me how deep and and
00:09:42
wide the subject really is what is your
00:09:45
most brilliant mistake well we all make
00:09:48
them and it's hard to uh you know
00:09:50
reflect on them in personally I think I
00:09:53
made a mistake you would say from an
00:09:55
academ I was an academic for many years
00:09:57
and I decided to take a rather long
00:09:58
sabatical outside of Academia when my
00:10:01
career was going quite well just having
00:10:03
been promoted uh to uh to associate
00:10:05
professor and U and a lot of my colleagu
00:10:07
said this is not smart you know you have
00:10:10
a nice momentum going keep doing
00:10:12
research and do it at a later point and
00:10:14
and I went against that conventional
00:10:15
wisdom and there were clearly some costs
00:10:18
you know for two years fewer
00:10:19
Publications but there were also great
00:10:21
benefits resulting in a change in career
00:10:24
a change in setting up a company uh Etc
00:10:27
so I would say that the benefits did
00:10:29
outweigh those costs so you learned from
00:10:31
the mistake to your benefit I did I
00:10:33
would recommend it to others as well
00:10:35
yeah why is it so hard for most of us to
00:10:37
learn from our mistakes what's what are
00:10:39
the problems we run into I think that
00:10:41
people don't enjoy thinking about them H
00:10:44
there's a visual reaction to mistakes
00:10:46
you know we use expressions like eating
00:10:48
your words and being sick to your
00:10:50
stomach when something wrong happens so
00:10:52
we willing to learn from surprise if it
00:10:54
is a positive surprise if something good
00:10:55
happens to us we well we happily talk
00:10:58
about it with others and dwell on it
00:11:00
mistakes we want to suppress also in
00:11:02
organizations and uh and and the
00:11:04
challenge there for for leaders and
00:11:05
companies is to create cultures where
00:11:07
people actually get the benefit of the
00:11:09
tuition that the company already has
00:11:11
paid namely the mistake uh what do you
00:11:13
think is the most important thing that
00:11:15
readers will get out of your book
00:11:16
brilliant
00:11:17
mistakes well number one I think that it
00:11:19
will change their view about what a
00:11:21
mistake is and and the value of it
00:11:23
secondly I think they will see lots of
00:11:25
examples where in business this has been
00:11:27
used to Advantage by rather gifted
00:11:30
leaders and thirdly they will get a road
00:11:33
map of what mistakes to make because
00:11:35
there's many dumb mistakes you can make
00:11:37
so you have to be clever about the
00:11:38
mistakes you decide to invite into your
00:11:40
life and be careful so Paul schoemaker
00:11:43
author of brilliant mistakes thank you
00:11:44
very much thank you Steve for having me
00:11:50
[Music]
