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RETHINKING FAILURE WITH BARBARA CORCORAN

KEY INSIGHTS

• Sometimes the best success come on the heels of failure

• Failure and innovation are kissing cousins. You work on one, you get the other.

• Build a culture of innovation

How Barbara Corcoran has done that:

• She rewards both good and bad ideas from employees-- the idea is to keep the ideas coming.

• She allowed herself to fail publicly- it became non-threatening for her employees too

• She provided her managers a budget for failure

• She provided a mad money budget- for fun, experimentation, discovery (5% of operating budget)

• The importance of failing well- what's the difference between the hugely successful and the marginally successful? It's the amount of time they spend feeling sorry for themselves. Success is about resiliency. If people get back up fast, they become thrivingly successful. They're in the habit of failing and they bounce back reflexively and move forward.