In the current business environment, there aren’t many people who are willing to stick their necks out in order to suggest a new way of doing things or champion an experimental product or service. So many company managers are intent on trimming the fat that they forget how critical it is to keep the innovative thinkers around even though their last idea might have failed. Taking a longer look at their track record is a much better approach. Small business consulting services can attest to the wisdom of keeping the dreamers and thinkers on the payroll–even after a failure–if their ideas have borne fruit in the past.
Giving Innovative Thinkers Security
The employees who come up with a brilliant new way to package your product or a new approach to working with clients won’t speak up and share those ideas if a group of their peers is fired every time someone’s idea fails. It’s time to stop penalizing individuals for good ideas that simply didn’t work, or soon you’ll be getting no ideas from your employees at all. Managers can take a stand in favor of retaining their creative thinkers by asking a few critical questions that will determine whether something was truly a bad idea or if it failed because of an isolated problem. Small business consulting services analyze new products or services on several levels:
- Was the concept flawed from the beginning?
- Was the concept good but the execution bad?
- Did the concept address an unmet need for your target demographic?
- Was the presentation or marketing at fault?
- Was the failure complete, or are their salvageable elements?
Failed Experiments Lead To Creative Solutions
There is a distinct difference between a bad idea and a failed experiment. Small business consulting services can attest to the fact that successful companies are willing to learn from mistakes in order to encourage creativity and innovation. Rather than punish someone for a perceived product or service failure, successful companies learn from the experience and move on, giving innovative thinkers the opportunity to come up with more and better solutions. The end result isn’t guaranteed, but in most cases, those failed ideas eventually generate concepts that become outstanding successes.
Makarios Consulting will give you the tools you need to create a company environment that fosters change and learns from failures. Contact us today to learn more about how your company can transform failures into a guideline for future success.
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