Cultivating a Laboratory Culture

An interesting contrast of expectation exists between experimenting in business and working in a laboratory. The business leader who tries and fails is often measured by their shortcomings. Yet the scientist who fails repeatedly is often deemed worthy of the highest praise for persistence. The expectation of perpetual business success, a proverbial Midas touch, limits organizational growth due to the fear factor of the scarlet letter of failure. However, businesses willing to embrace the laboratory of iteration create organizational resilience through innovation.

Envision your company functioning like a scientific laboratory vs. the parochial military order. The scientists are provided the flexibility to experiment, fail, and repeat. Visualize the development of a culture for business in which staff and owners embrace the process rather than solely the outcome.

This transition takes courage from business leaders to create a space that fosters innovation without fear and rewards the process. It asks a leader to face the mirror, requiring their own public self-reflection on their disappointing visits to the lab. Yet as unsettling as this may feel, the rewards are worthy of the task.

Experimentation Accepts Failure

For many businesses, experimentation is only viewed through one lens — success. As a result, failure is often avoided at all costs. This fear of process locks leaders into a bowling-with-bumpers scenario, which stifles innovation. In laboratory culture, falling short is an invaluable part of the process.

I'm not suggesting that companies embrace underperforming individuals and recklessly explore dismantling key pillars of their organizations. Instead, developing a flourishing work community set on high expectations paired with organizational investments yields and produces an ecosystem to create, experiment, and challenge without negative repercussions. Creating a laboratory culture is an environment that honors the know-how and commitment of individuals to innovate.

Growth from Setbacks

Fear of failure is a primary obstacle to growth and a prominent element in the development of many individuals. Going all the way back to school, the anxiety-driven fear of failure often causes people to avoid obstacles that could steer them to the right career, relationship, and outcomes. Disappointments can direct us toward opportunity by secretly advising on our areas of strength.

However, setting up an environment where obstacles are willingly placed in the way and embraced is when experimentation and creativity produce results that lift individuals and organizations to unimaginable heights.

Many admired titans of industry have experienced deep, personal setbacks along their journeys. Yet, in many respects, it proved to galvanize their progress. Oprah was fired. Musk leveraged financially as rockets exploded vs. soared. Jobs was terminated from Apple only to return to launch the iPhone. While reckless pursuit may yield surprising outcomes, controlled and experimented attempts create lasting value.

Laboratory Culture Creation

In my eyes, the only way to create is to experiment, and the only way to experiment is to fail. That's laboratory culture. Setting equal expectations and experimentation allows people to create with purpose inside a company culture. No matter the role at Strategos Group, on your first day, a communication is sent from me to the entire staff cc'd. In summary, it says, “Welcome to the team. The expectation is experimentation. We want you to be failing, but not the same failures twice.” This message acts as a company manifesto and a springboard of opportunity. It reaffirms to the staff that we deeply believe in this core value of our culture.

Inevitably, all of us have attempted and did not succeed. We may have fallen short of the expectation set or the envisioned outcome, not reaching our potential. Upon self-reflection and distillation of failures, it often comes down to a lack of process vs. a lack of vision. Creating an environment for such reflection is vital to being a leader.

Reflection in leadership begins by providing a consultative response to a team member exploring the elements of an unsuccessful endeavor. Instead of being criticized, which many expect, the onus is placed back on the individual through a “what worked and even better if” framework. This exercise defines value-added and addresses issues to move ahead more effectively. As a result, individuals within a company structure evaluate their ability, take ownership, and consciously examine their mistakes for self-directed improvement. In addition, these reviews provide moments in which we share our own disappointments—the candid lessons required to affirm to your team the realities of the development process.

People Make the Lab

Company culture matters, and according to McKinsey insights, it can determine the difference between organizations that struggle and those that become high-performing. Culture combines "how" and "what" with resilience, a key factor in the changing environments companies inevitably face. In many respects, company culture represents the important throughline and supporting beam of all the elements that shape an organizational structure.

Ultimately, people are the culture of an enterprise. Systems are necessary but they are only as effective as those behind the levers. As acclaimed Georgetown professor and author Cal Newport suggests, many activities inside organizations pull focus and form distractions from the key attributes of team members, where endless emails about why something isn't working create little value. Instead, a laboratory culture directs individuals into creatively finding solutions and using their expertise the right way.

I share these observations from the solitude of my “lab.” A determined space to experiment and learn where I fill the walls with new ideas to test, discard, institute, and resume again. To be clear, these lists are filled with possible future setbacks, yet we persist with experimentation – as the next great idea lies within. 

 Laboratory Buy-In 

Allowing a laboratory culture to unfold means giving it space to breathe and form with the buy-in from the people who make up an organization. This starts with the leaders creating the freedom to explore paired with compensation/evaluation systems to reward the process. Furthermore, it will require you to speak openly about failures both personal and organizational to share lessons learned and the value of persistence. 

Leaders must allow themselves the same margin for error and experimentation. While there are times that will require being the enthusiastic and vocal motivator to push projects ahead, retreating into the lab to experiment and flesh out ideas is foundational to growth. As stated by Cal Newport, no one has created anything of value in answering emails.

Setting up a laboratory culture in business is a mixture of encouragement, process, and the unwavering commitment that with creativity comes experimentation – and with experimentation, there will be failure – and incredible success.