I’ve been thinking a lot about experimentation this week (see my two posts yesterday, one here and one on socialfish), so today’s Humanize quote is from Chapter 9: How to Be Courageous, from the section on experimentation (p. 232):

The processes and systems that you find in today’s organizations are designed specifically to avoid making mistakes. Our quality initiatives are designed to reduce the number of errors. Our legal counsels are there to ensure we don’t take unnecessary risks. Our performance management systems are designed to identify and reward people for doing things that work, not things that fail. There is nothing wrong with quality, risk management, and project successes, but this is not where the learning happens, and an excessive focus on those things can end up unintentionally thwarting innovation.