Engineers Prove that Failing Fast Drives Discovery

Experimentation and innovation are key to helping leading companies evolve and survive, and engineers show how it’s done.

This article was contributed by Sarah Boen, Director of Technology Strategy at Tektronix.

We learn the most from our failures, which is why organizations seeking to innovate need to promote a culture where employees feel safe to admit when their hunch just wasn’t right. Whether an idea turned out different than they thought, or simply wasn’t a good fit for the business, employees need permission to fail and fail fast. This practice gives employees the space to test more ideas, land the best ones and help the company drive discovery. Speaking from a company now in its 75th year, corporate longevity can hinge on experimentation, even if 70% or more experiments will fail, because over time those who fail fast innovate most.

(Stock photo.)

In large companies, innovation can suffer for profits. Trying to stay ahead of the curve requires financial risk, and we’ve seen iconic companies like General Motors stumble when fear of financial loss is prioritized over creation. In 2008, this one-time emblematic company of American ingenuity—the world’s largest automaker—was at risk of financial collapse.

GM leaders testified to Congress that they chose (the idea of) financial stability over necessary innovation just as the industry around them was introducing hybrids and more fuel-efficient cars. GM had essentially opted to play it safe, giving consumers what GM thought they wanted. But that had changed. After a government bailout, GM changed course. In 2016, they debuted their first long-range all-electric car, the Chevrolet Bolt EV. At CES 2021, GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra introduced GM’s new lineup of electric vehicles aimed to “accelerate a transition to a net zero carbon future.” Today, the company also celebrates 100 years.

The philosophy of fast failure is often more prevalent in start-ups than large corporations. Without decades of success to lean on as a reason to not do something new, startups are unburdened by a history of proven process. While 9 out of 10 startups ultimately fail, for big companies to survive long-term, they also need an experimentation mindset. Their legacy must evolve alongside their customers’ changing needs, and better yet, they must discover new needs that create wholesale disruption of a traditional market.

Leaders are responsible for creating a culture where people are engaged and motivated to propose and nurture new ideas. That starts by hiring bright people, who thrive on challenge, push boundaries and have the humility to acknowledge when they are on the wrong track. The best problem solvers experiment and understand that failure is part of the process, and they seek learning along the way.

Professionally, engineers constantly strive to uncover the next wave of growth. They seek the shortest path from inspiration to realization, seeing complexity as opportunity. Where in some careers, long-time veterans may get set in their ways, a recent AspenCore survey of engineers found that the more experienced the engineer, the more interested they are in trying new things and breaking preconceived rules. By nurturing that curiosity, a company invests in its future and empowers employees to blaze trails for new customers.

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, NVIDIA was seen as a market leader in video game graphics, among the first creating 3D realistic gaming experiences. In a growth segment, the company may have continued along just fine, supplying the likes of Xbox and other custom gaming platforms. But instead, in 2018 the company broadened its reach, getting into artificial intelligence (AI) and smart city technology and growing 41%.

NVIDIA’s story is well known in Silicon Valley for embracing failure. When a huge team of engineers fell flat in its efforts to break into the mobile-phone chip market in 2014, company leadership didn’t fire them for failing. They sent the group in search of a new market, and it worked to the tune of a half billion dollars in the automotive computing sector.

A culture that invests in this kind of R&D activates curiosity and unlocks next-gen innovation. At Tektronix, we encourage our teams to do intense customer listening before jumping into a solution. And we applaud those teams who identify early that the project they are working on should stop. This process not only preserves resources for only the most-viable solutions, it also provides opportunities to learn by association, where another problem could be fixed by one failure’s lesson. In reality, companies with more than 500 employees do 5.75 times more R&D than small companies, and their R&D is 13% more productive. R&D also most benefits industries associated with rapid technological improvements, even though up to three-quarters of those projects will fail.

This kind of culture depends on leadership and trust. At Tektronix, ideas are vetted by a growth board composed of the executive team. When an idea is initially approved, a first gate of funding is released, and the executives who backed it are vested. They become the support system dedicated to seeing the idea succeed, or helping it fail fast. This partnership is more than process; it’s culture. Leaders are coaches, helping employees make discoveries that establish an organization unafraid to think differently. 

Innovation doesn’t happen without this curiosity. Those who fail and those who succeed try the same amount of times. The difference? Whether anything is learned from the failure.

An obsession with hiring diverse teams is also critical—including backgrounds, levels of experience and mindsets. Investing in education, mentoring and recruitment ensures a diverse pipeline of new ideas into the future. In our industry, we recognize that the foundation of innovative thinking begins in a university lab, where trying and failing are part of a curriculum. It’s in the industry’s best interest that students develop the analytical mindset within the safe bounds of school so that they are more likely to take calculated risks later as employees.

Inventing the next best thing requires testing a lot of bad ideas. Companies like GM and NVIDIA thrived not without stumbles, but because they learned from failures. It is the responsibility of any company leader to expect setbacks and power through them, and help employees do the same.

Innovation is a required risk for survival.

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Sarah Boen is the Director of Technology Strategy at Tektronix, where she is responsible for identifying tech trends to help develop future technologies that enable customers to bring new products to market. Tektronix is the globally-renowned test and measurement company producing innovative technology utilized by the world’s most ground-breaking organizations, based in Beaverton, Oregon.

Sarah Boen is the Director of Technology Strategy at Tektronix, where she is responsible for identifying tech trends to help develop future technologies that enable customers to bring new products to market. Tektronix is the globally-renowned test and measurement company producing innovative technology utilized by the world’s most ground-breaking organizations, based in Beaverton, Oregon.