The Canadian company Shopify may not be as well known as Amazon but, as an e-commerce platform for on-line stores, it appears to have attracted significant custom by providing a better service. This success may, in a large measure, be due to its founder and CEO, Tobias (Toby) Lütke – and one of his guiding beliefs is reported to be that “nothing can become truly resilient when everything goes right”, writes Prof Simon Bridge.
However, if you are working in a public sector or similar official agency where change can be awkward, it is understandable that, once you have launched a service or programme, you would like to feel that the offering for which you are responsible is going right and is serving its purpose well. Consequently you may not welcome suggestions to the contrary – and it is understandable that you might therefore be tempted, even if only subconsciously, to avoid having to notice any adverse indications.
But if, like Lütke, you want to deliver the best possible sustainable outcome, you need to realise that, however much thought may have gone into its preparation, an initial offering is unlikely to be fault-free and that, at any stage, getting better requires an honest acceptance of the present position, even if the reality is not what you might wish it to be. You should want to know about any issues and problems because otherwise how will you be able to learn from such feedback and find where improvement is needed. That does not mean that first efforts are never any use but in reality the only proper test of something is real life experience and making it better involves exposing it to that experience and learning from it.
Broadly speaking this suggests that, when they have responsibility for a product or service, there are two contrasting approaches that people might adopt:
- One is to think that failure comes from poor preparation and therefore, if proper care has been taken in designing a particular product or service, the offering should be as good as might reasonably be expected. Therefore anything which doesn’t fit with that view can be dismissed as just an occasional exception which, as such, does not need to be investigated further.
- The other is to recognise that nothing is going to be perfect from the start and that, at any stage, further improvement is likely to be possible. Therefore trying something for real is a necessary test to reveal which areas can be improved – not least to try to reduce the chances of any future failure. Consequently all adverse feedback should be welcomed and given full consideration as a potentially useful source of learning.
Human instinct seems to favour the first position whereas Murphy’s Law[*] is a statement of the second. Murphy’s Law might be rather blunt but nevertheless should be recognised. For instance, it is generally accepted in the aircraft industry and Boeing’s seeming disregard of that in its recent problems with the 737 Max showed why.
The company’s failure to investigate initial reports of a possible problem were illuminating as they exemplified that human failings in believing in one’s own excellence can lead to disaster.
But, overall, the aircraft industry has learnt that failures are always possible and that the route to continuous improvement (which has made the industry’s products so safe relative to other means of transport) is to investigate any possible error to identify its cause and, if necessary, implement improvements. That is the essence of the (so called) ‘trial and error’ process which is the way that almost everything which works well was actually developed.
But what does the culture of your organisation actually encourage and what are the motivations for or against acknowledging imperfections and experimenting in order to get better?
Is it like the apparent public sector culture where, if it goes well, there will be no extra reward for those responsible but if it goes badly they will probably find themselves answering to the Public Accounts Committee?
Or is it the approach which helps a country to win a war – one where it is acknowledged that the current methods aren’t working and, if you don’t try to find a better approach, you are going to lose?
History suggests that it is the latter which leads to fast and successful innovation. As Morgan Housel has explained if the attitude is “if we don’t figure this out right now we’re all going to die and Adolf Hitler might take over the world” then “that will fuel the most incredible problem solving and innovation in the shortest period of time that the world has ever seen”.
But if, instead, you have the former culture and want to do better, how can you start to change?
References
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-12-23/shopify-amazon-retail-rivalry-heats-up-with-covid-sparked-online-shopping-booma
Morgan Housel, Same as Ever, (Petersfield: Harriman House, 2023)
[*]Murphy’s Law has been expressed as ‘If something can do wrong, at some time it will’.
