“The way to succeed is to double your error rate.” (Thomas J. Watson Founder of IBM.)
Clearly, Thomas Watson was a fan of the Ready, Fire, Aim approach we discussed at The Watercooler on Tuesday. The problem is that if we care about what we do, we hate making errors. More accurately, we consider the possibility of failure and hate the idea to the extent that we avoid doing things. If we don’t do things we can’t make errors. But the problem with that approach is that we don’t do things and so we don’t have a business.
But what exactly is our fear? Is it of losing money? Possibly, but are we really staking that much compared with the possible returns? Is it that we will disappoint our customers? Maybe, but if we screw up and admit it to them, apologise and refund their money, it is likely they’ll not think too badly of us. Is it the fear of making a fool of ourselves? Looking a bit silly? YES!
Most of us hate the idea of making a fool of ourselves. Which is why I never wear those stupid paper hats from Christmas crackers. Plastic moustache anyone?
