Experiment ALOT and Keep What Works
Visionary companies stimulate evolutionary progress by encouraging experimentation.
Charles Darwin discovered that evolution is a series of successful “experiments” in which slight variations are introduced to a species and the strongest new variants survive.
Similarly, the visionary companies studied understood the need to stimulate a similar evolutionary progress within their businesses.
They encouraged their employees and management to experiment with new ideas, products and practices, some of which became great successes.
Consider for example J&J's famous Band-Aids.
They were born when an employee put together some surgical tape and gauze to quickly bandage his wife's fingers after she accidentally cut herself with a kitchen knife.
When he mentioned the idea to the J&J marketing department, they embraced it and eventually, Band-Aid products became the company's best-selling category.
Or consider 3M, which directed its employees to use 15 percent of their working time to work on any pet projects they felt like.
Two such projects by two separate employees eventually collided to produce the famous Post-It Notes.
This would never have happened if 3M hadn't actively encouraged experimentation and allowed its employees to continue with their pet projects, even when early market studies were negative.
Contrast this with 3M's comparison company, Norton, which actually discouraged the pursuit of opportunities outside of its traditional product lines.
One aspect of evolution is that some – or even most – variations fail; the same is true in business.
J&J experienced some very prominent failures too, for example, its colored casts for children with bone fractures.
The casts quickly turned hospital bed sheets into something resembling modern art and threw hospital laundries into chaos.
Visionary companies understood that failed experiments are the necessary price to pay for evolution and must not be punished lest further experimentation be discouraged.
Experiment ALOT and Keep What Works
Visionary companies stimulate evolutionary progress by encouraging experimentation.
Charles Darwin discovered that evolution is a series of successful “experiments” in which slight variations are introduced to a species and the strongest new variants survive.
Similarly, the visionary companies studied understood the need to stimulate a similar evolutionary progress within their businesses.
They encouraged their employees and management to experiment with new ideas, products and practices, some of which became great successes.
Consider for example J&J's famous Band-Aids.
They were born when an employee put together some surgical tape and gauze to quickly bandage his wife's fingers after she accidentally cut herself with a kitchen knife.
When he mentioned the idea to the J&J marketing department, they embraced it and eventually, Band-Aid products became the company's best-selling category.
Or consider 3M, which directed its employees to use 15 percent of their working time to work on any pet projects they felt like.
Two such projects by two separate employees eventually collided to produce the famous Post-It Notes.
This would never have happened if 3M hadn't actively encouraged experimentation and allowed its employees to continue with their pet projects, even when early market studies were negative.
Contrast this with 3M's comparison company, Norton, which actually discouraged the pursuit of opportunities outside of its traditional product lines.
One aspect of evolution is that some – or even most – variations fail; the same is true in business.
J&J experienced some very prominent failures too, for example, its colored casts for children with bone fractures.
The casts quickly turned hospital bed sheets into something resembling modern art and threw hospital laundries into chaos.
Visionary companies understood that failed experiments are the necessary price to pay for evolution and must not be punished lest further experimentation be discouraged.
#ExperimentALOTandKeepWhat