The Practises column is the most straightforward, if you do the right things the right way, you’ll likely be successful. Sadly enough, even the best tried-and-tested practises fail every now and then. But this is not necessarily a reflection on the team that failed. As long as they reflect on what happened, they will learn and avoid failure in the future. One example of a best practice that might fail is the use of checklists. The thinking behind checklists is hard to argue against as a good checklist breaks down a complicated procedure into a series of logical, easy to follow, steps. But what if something happens that isn’t covered by the checklist? Everything we do and use today is far more complex than it used to be, so unless checklists are continually evaluated and updated, they might end up doing more harm than good.

More interesting I find the Mistakes column. Mistakes tend to lead to failure, but sometimes something gone wrong can actually lead to success. And as long as we reflect on and try to understand our failures, we will learn from them and possibly be successful at a later time. A well-known example of this is the Post-it Note. Back in 1968, a 3M research scientist attempted to create a super strong glue, but he failed. Then in 1974, one of his colleagues found that the failed glue had an interesting characteristic, a strip of paper with the unglue swiped onto its edges could be stuck on any surface and stay in place. When not needed anymore, it could be easily removed without any harm done. The idea of an improved bookmark was born and Post-it Notes rapidly became the top-selling office-supply they are today.

The most interesting column to me is Experiments. As you can see in the graph, both success and failure are green (i.e. successful). Why? Basically, experimenting means trying something new without knowing if the outcome will be a success or not. Either you try and succeed or you try and fail. But whatever the outcome, you always learn something new

Full post: https://wuwei-inst.org/management-3-0-celebration-grids/