Replying to LO4277, Bobbie Turniansky says --
Rol,
You've just completely destroyed my faith in LL Bean. From afar I've
always pictured them as an experimenting company (that is, one that knows
that not all experiments work). Now I'll just continue looking at them as
a company with good products which I can't afford.
*** End Quote ***
If I have destroyed anyone's faith in LL Bean, then I have misspoken.
Your faith should be safe. Let me see what I can do to clarify. I said,
"My company does not like experiments that fail, and yet, I am convinced
that experimenting is crucial."
Ok, LL Bean is not happy with experiments that fail, and yet, they give me
money to experiment _knowing in advance_ that there will be failures.
This may be paradoxical, but I think not. They understand the _potential_
value of experimentation. At the same time, they need what I refer to as
"responsible" experimentation. Responsible experimentation for me is a
mix of experiments with different probabilities of success, but with 100%
probability of learning. The capitalist system -- no, actually, the
customer -- demands periodic and regular success. No one is demanding
complete success.
I then said, "My approach to resolving this is to keep the mix of
activities in front of people so they understand the larger context. It
is easy for management to pick out a failure, and indict it. To prevent
that, we keep a mix of 6-8 tasks publicly in front of management pretty
much at all times. Usually a couple of these are guaranteed successes,
and we keep them near completion so we can call in our chips when we need
to."
Bean is a large, complex organization. Keeping all people informed of the
entire context is crucial, and yet difficult. We make communication about
our successes and failures a conscious process because we want people to
know a) we succeed often enough, and b) we want others to emulate us.
Perhaps it would help if I explain that management is not a small band of
highly homogeneous people who know everything, but is instead widely
dispersed geographically and functionally, and in constant need of
information about the functioning of other parts of the company. When I
say, "call in our chips..." that sounds too cynical, and it is not so
intended. We simply need to manage our return on experiments.
Also, as I said in other notes, this process is for _me_, not just upper
management. It facilitates learning, and it provides the discipline
context for what I referred to above as "responsible" experimentation.
Then I said,"As time goes on, we mix in successes and failures, keeping
the whole mix in front of everyone. This creates an environment in which
management can easily see that the successes more than pay for the
failures, and therefore, they condone ongoing experimentation."
So after all, management _does_ condone and encourage experimentation when
a certain level of success occurs. This is critical for people to
understand. The market place _does not care_ if an experiment is done with
good intentions. Over reasonable time frames experimentation must deliver
a certain amount of value. Experimentation -- not every experiment, but
experimentation in general -- carries a high responsibility to convert the
results into something of value to customers. Otherwise, they will go
shop somewhere else. Neither I nor other employees would be pleased with
the consequences of that, and the customer would lose out as well.
Finally, I said, "Some people may view this as manipulation. It is not.
It is absolutely essential in a competitive environment that we achieve
enough ongoing success to pay for the failures and still make a little
money. The process described above forces a discipline on the department
to meet a certain positive payback ratio. Generally, the 'failures'
provide learning that eventually is converted into a success further down
the road. Keeping the process visible to all is merely responsible
behavior."
I believe in my heart that this is the essence of good experimentation.
It is how learning organizations learn.
I wonder if there is some resistance to having a process of accounting for
results of experiments. In this forum we talk about the need to fail as
if we want it to happen every time, but the reality is, no one wants
experiments to fail too often. The goal of experiments is, after all,
success, not failure. We need to allow for failure, but we need to
encourage success. One could argue (I did, back in the 60's) that the
capitalist system is not a very good one, but it is what we have. Within
this system, the rules are clear even though how to succeed is not. The
consequences for failure are clear. I certainly feel responsible to
employees and customers to not fail too much while learning. Therefore
there is a discipline which provides a reasonable return on our investment
in experimentation.
I hope one day to count you among our loyal customers, but in the
meantime, I hope even more that your faith is restored.
-- Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc 76234.3636@compuserve.com