Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

Failure, as we’ve seen, is the portal to discovery, innovation, and long-term success. But most organizations suffer from collective amnesia over their failures. Mistakes remain concealed because employees are too afraid to share them. Most companies tell their employees, explicitly or implicitly, that if you succeed—according to short-term, quantifiable metrics like profits—you get a big pot of money, a better office, and a better title. If you fail, you get nothing. Or worse, you get shown the door. This incentive scheme only exacerbates the deeply ingrained inertia against owning up to our failures. When we reward success and punish failure, employees will underreport failures, overreport successes, and reframe anything that falls in between in the best possible light. When we shoot the messengers, people stop delivering messages—particularly if they work for us. In one study, 42 percent of surveyed scientists across nine federal agencies (including NASA) feared retaliation for speaking out.52 Of more than forty thousand employees surveyed at a tech company, 50 percent believed it wasn’t safe to speak up at work.