LTYM - The Light Bulb

Letters to a Young Manager

The Light Bulb, #544
LTYM > Innovation

Dear Adam,

***

How many experiments did you run last year? How many do you expect to try in the coming year?

Thomas Edison is said to have run 10,000 experiments before finding the right filament to make the electric light bulb. When asked how he could stomach failing 10,000 times, he is purported to have said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." The experiments were part of the journey to finding out what did work. So, he totally reframed it, from failures to discoveries of what doesn't work and why, as part of that journey and experimenting your way to the solution. That's hard.

The point is not about accepting failure as an organization, or about colossal failure; rather, I believe innovation comes from many small experiments, with many small failures and a few notable successes that are then taken to scale and make for huge successes and brilliant hindsight strategy. Or in other words, the strategy is in the prototypes. I like the image of Thomas Edison doggedly trying hundreds of filaments before getting the light bulb right.

Are you going to increase your experiments next year? This is your opportunity to find new solutions.

***

Sincerely yours,
Ed

________________________

References...

Takeaways:

Reframe the problem into an opportunity

Discussion Questions:

1. Are you failure resistant? Is your organization?
2. If a failure means your are closer to a success, is that an opportunity for you? For your organization?
3. What does our education system teach us about failure? Is that out of alignment with experimenting?

For Further Reading:

See "1008 Rejections," LTYM #101
and "Fail Fast", LTYM #134

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563582_2/Thomas_Alva_Edison.html

"Edison, like others before him, conceived the idea of a light with a glowing wire, or filament, made of a substance that could endure very high temperatures without fusing, melting, or burning out. After hundreds of trials and more than a year of steady work, Edison developed a high-resistance carbon-thread filament that burned steadily for more than 40 hours. Although not the first incandescent electric light, it was the first practical one because it used a small current and, in addition, lasted a long time without burning out."

I love the failure quote here: http://web.mit.edu/Invent/iow/edison.html

In 1876, in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison founded his famous "invention factory." "The Wizard of Menlo Park" was a workaholic and a demanding employer, but he did not resent failures in the lab: "That's one more way it won't work, so we're closer to a solution." Edison's first great Menlo Park invention was the phonograph (1877), although he did not bring it to market for ten years. He was busy with his greatest project: a workable electric light system that would replace candles and gaslight forever, at home and in public.

In 1878, Edison created his prototype incandescent light bulb: a thin strip of paper, attached to wires, enclosed in a vacuum inside a glass bulb. When electricity flowed into the paper "filament," it heated up, and glowed. The only problem was that the paper burnt out very quickly. After thousands of tests, an "Edison Pioneer," Lewis H. Latimer, found the optimal filament material: carbonized cotton thread (1897).