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How to innovate - Be comfortable with “failure of result”


‘Failure’ has received a lot of ‘good press’ in recent years. And as someone who is passionate about Innovation, I am happy to see this positivity around failure.

But let’s be clear – not all failures are good, actually some failures can be disastrous. Now, how do we separate the good from the bad?

While attending an online course, I stumbled upon a framework proposed by Joel Peterson, Chairman of JetBlue which helped me get clarity on how to spot the ‘right’ failure.

Here is how Joel Peterson classifies failure:
Failure of Ethics – An Organization / individual indulging in illegal or immoral activities and failing.

Failure of Effort - An Organization / individual not putting in all possible effort and thus failing.

Failure of Result - An Organization / individual even when acting ethically and exhausting all resources still fails to get the desired results.

While pursuing innovation, “Failure of result” is of the ‘good kind’ and we should all be comfortable with it.


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