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Abstract: This article examines how organizations can cultivate a culture of experimentation and continuous learning to counteract intellectual laziness. The article argues that establishing psychological safety, where people feel confident sharing ideas without judgment, is essential for groups to take risks and learn from failures. Leaders must also actively reward and celebrate risk-taking behaviors through tangible and social rewards to motivate experimentation. Framing failures as valuable data points and stepping stones toward progress helps teams reconceptualize missteps not as dead-ends but opportunities to improve. Through strategies like allocating time for self-directed projects, conducting post-mortem reviews, and sharing failures transparently, companies like Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, and IDEO have fostered creativity. The article draws on academic literature and real-world examples to demonstrate how shaping an environment where curiosity is prized over complacency positions organizations to adapt rapidly and outmaneuver competitors through ongoing discovery and refinement.
In today’s fast-paced business climate, complacency is the enemy of progress. Organizations that stagnate risk being left behind by more innovative competitors. However, change and learning require effort—it is human nature to seek the path of least resistance. As consultants and leaders, part of our role is to counterbalance this tendency towards laziness and resistance to change. We must cultivate environments where experimentation, discovery, and continuous improvement are the cultural norms.
Today we will explore how organizations can promote a culture of experimentation that defends against intellectual laziness. Through establishing psychological safety, rewarding risk-taking, and embracing failures as learning opportunities, leaders can develop curious, innovative teams focused on progress over passivity.
Establishing Psychological Safety
At the foundation of any culture is how people feel—specifically, how safe they feel to take chances, make mistakes, and learn from failures. Research has shown that psychological safety, or “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up,” is critical for team learning and effectiveness (Edmondson, 1999, p. 350). When people feel their ideas will be met with judgment rather than consideration, they will keep their heads down and stick to the status quo rather than suggest new approaches. As consultants, we have seen firsthand how fear of failure or reprisal stifles innovation. Leaders must communicate clearly that experimentation and learning from “failures” are not only accepted but expected aspects of the work. Regular “check-ins” that invite open-feedback and acknowledge mistakes, coupled with leading by example in admitting one’s own errors, go a long way in establishing trust.
Once safety is established, teams can then focus outward on progress instead of inward on defense. Research on over 750 employees across multiple organizations found that psychological safety directly predicted learning behaviors like asking for help and sharing mistakes—both critical to an experimentation culture (Carmeli et al., 2009). Similarly, a study of over 150 software development teams saw risk-taking and innovation grow significantly where members felt safe to speak up without repercussions (Hülsheger et al., 2009). Of course, developing genuine trust takes time and consistency of message. But leaders who prioritize safety will see their teams increasingly willing to venture into uncharted waters in their quest for solutions.
Rewarding and Celebrating Risk-Taking
Simply communicating openness to failure is not enough—leaders must actively reward curiosity and experimentation through both tangible and social rewards. Monetary incentives, dedicated work time, public recognition, and career advancement for big ideas successfully tested can motivate risk-taking behaviors (Fang et al., 2015). I have seen consulting clients struggle when their compensation systems over-incentivized short-term financial metrics over long-term discovery. But where teams were given greater autonomy and control of project funds, accompanied by opportunities to publish findings or present at conferences, inventiveness notably increased.
Social rewards like celebrating early-stage prototypes or sharing lessons from failed pilots also matter deeply. When successes and mistakes alike are openly discussed, it transforms risk from a personal vulnerability into a shared learning experience. For example, one technology firm devotes 20% of its weekly all-hands meeting to highlighting recent experiments—both hits and misses. Seeing respected leaders engaged in transparent post-mortems of what went wrong trains others that stumbles are normal and their insights valuable (Haas & Park, 2010). Over time, such recognition reframes progress not as an individual “feat” but a collaborative mission everyone has a role in advancing. Where rewards recognize perseverance over perfection, habits of ongoing trial and refinement will take root as the social norm.
Viewing Failures as Stepping Stones
If psychological safety pulls fear from inhibitng learning, and rewards push for more opportinities to learn, a third element must clarify the very nature and purpose of failures along the journey. Specifically, leaders must help teams reconceptualize missteps not as dead-ends but as stepping stones—valuable data points that steer future efforts clearer to the goal. Consultants understand that true learning arises from analysis of what went awry much more than from automatic successes. Yet people naturally wnat to avoid, ignore or downplay negatives in favor of positives. The role of leaders, then, includes framing setbacks as progress and normalizing discussions around course correction.
For example, 3M famously encourages "15% time"—protected hours employees can spend on self-directed projects with permission to fail fast and revise plans. Understanding experiments will fail more than succeed, 3M celebrates failures as opportunities to learn what directions won't work rather than as wasted time or money (Thomke & von Hippel, 2002). Similarly, Google established its famous 70/20/10 program that allocates employees' time towards core job functions (70%), collaborative projects (20%), and personal interests (10%)—specifically to channel inventiveness through low-risk experimentation (Bock, 2015). By freeing space in projects and mindsets for divergence from plans A and even B, organizations give failures room to teach without fear of reprisal.
Practically, leaders can help teams debrief failures systematically through structured "post-mortems" focusing on objective analysis of what factors led astray rather than defensive blaming. With the right perspective, failures provide a treasure trove of insights otherwise hidden from view. By mining mistakes for lessons and reframing detours as steps to reshape the journey, leaders defend against an attitude of halting at the first signs of struggle in favor of persevering, adapting, and emerging stronger. An environment where failures advance knowledge, rather than feelings of inadequacy, cultivates deeply studious habits of continuous improvement.
Organizational Examples
To bring these concepts to life, consider how some leading companies have established experimentation-friendly cultures through the concepts outlined above.
At Netflix, "freedom and responsibility" form the backbone of its experimentation-driven operations. Management actively shields teams from bureaucratic hurdles to pursue new ideas, trusting people intrinsically want to do impactful work. Frank discussions of experiments' results replace fear of repercussions, freeing creativity.
Amazon practices a "fail-fast" mentality iteratively testing and improving products based on customer feedback. Its "two-pizza rule" of small, autonomous teams encourages nimble discovery versus large committees. Flexible structures also let people change focuses rapidly based on learnings.
Microsoft transformed the way it develops software via its internal Hackademy program. Similar to 3M's 15% time, employees can use 20% of their time on self-directed projects. This fostered countless innovations like OneNote and Delve that may have otherwise fallen through bureaucratic cracks.
At IDEO, designers thinking in rapid “design sprints” openly share failures through "post-it note reviews" to collectively make progress. Seeing mistakes as entry points to refine approaches rather than as personal failures creates intrinsic motivation for continuous optimization.
The unifying theme across such companies lies not in any one “silver bullet” but in an overarching tendency to prioritize progress over passive acceptance through small, iterative changes guided every step of the way by learnings from attempts—not stubborn defense of initial hypotheses. While failures matter little in themselves, their insights absolutely do. Leadership plays a key role here in shaping a culture where experimentation is not just allowed but expected and celebrated as the surest path to advancement in an unpredictable world.
Conclusion
In today’s fast-changing business climate, continuous adaptation through discovery and learning offers the sole sustainable competitive advantage. Yet human nature gravitates towards the ease of standing still. As external consultants and internal leaders alike, we play an essential role in defending against this natural inertia by cultivating psychologically-safe environments that actively reward, rather than punish, pushing limits through structured yet self-directed exploration and rigorous analysis of results. Where failures advance knowledge rather than threaten careers, where small steps guided by lived experiences substitute brute theorizing, cultures of perpetual reinvention and progress can emerge. While changing mindsets takes patient, authentic effort, the potential benefits of an invention-friendly culture positioned to out-maneuver competitors through curiosity far outweigh the costs of complacency. Leaders who shape their organizations as communities devoted to relentless betterment will prime them to prosper in uncertain times.
References
Carmeli, A., Brueller, D., & Dutton, J. E. (2009). Learning behaviours in the workplace: The role of high-quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 26(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.932
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2307/2666999
Fang, C., Li, C., Minakakis, L., & Lui, J. C. S. (2015). Humanizing the digital world: Engaging customers through artificial intelligence. In J. F. Nunamaker, Jr., N. D. Twyman, & A. R. Dennis (Eds.), Proceedings of the 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 5770-5779). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/41878
Haas, M. R., & Park, S. (2010). To share or not to share? Professional norms, reference groups, and knowledge sharing. Organization Science, 21(4), 873-890. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20865604
Hülsheger, U. R., Anderson, N., & Salgado, J. F. (2009). Team-level predictors of innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. Journal of applied psychology, 94(5), 1128. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0015978
Thomke, S., & von Hippel, E. (2002). Customers as innovators: A new way to create value. Harvard business review, 80(4), 74-81. https://hbr.org/2002/04/customers-as-innovators-a-new-way-to-create-value
Additional Reading
Westover, J. H. (2024). Optimizing Organizations: Reinvention through People, Adapted Mindsets, and the Dynamics of Change. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.3
Westover, J. H. (2024). Reinventing Leadership: People-Centered Strategies for Empowering Organizational Change. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.4
Westover, J. H. (2024). Cultivating Engagement: Mastering Inclusive Leadership, Culture Change, and Data-Informed Decision Making. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.5
Westover, J. H. (2024). Energizing Innovation: Inspiring Peak Performance through Talent, Culture, and Growth. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.6
Westover, J. H. (2024). Championing Performance: Aligning Organizational and Employee Trust, Purpose, and Well-Being. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.7
Citation: Westover, J. H. (2024). Workforce Evolution: Strategies for Adapting to Changing Human Capital Needs. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.8
Westover, J. H. (2024). Navigating Change: Keys to Organizational Agility, Innovation, and Impact. HCI Academic Press. doi.org/10.70175/hclpress.2024.11
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2024). Cultivating an Environment of Discovery: How Organizations Can Promote Learning and Progress Over Intellectual Laziness. Human Capital Leadership Review, 15(4). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.15.4.2
