make a lot of cheap mistakes

Making decisions can be scary. Leaders often cheat themselves of learning and overspend with their attempts to be cautious. Because they don’t want to screw up at all, they make fewer, bigger decisions and put too much faith in their ability to predict, analyze, and mitigate risk. More research, more stakeholder engagement, more polish on the message will prevent disaster. Or so the thinking goes.

Alas, there are no fortune tellers among us. So instead of saving up all your time, cash, and goodwill to spend on a small number of high-stakes decisions, commit to making lots of cheap mistakes.

A team that tests a bunch of theories, gathers data and feedback on what happens to those theories in practice, then discards or refines theories based on that data learns more, learns faster, and learns more cheaply than a team that only swings for the fences a small number of times.

I like the “cheap mistakes” phrasing for this approach because it bakes in the idea of safe failure, which is another way to say “learning.” 

A cheap mistakes approach can also save leaders from the shadow side of an otherwise healthy instinct to steal moves from highly successful peers or forerunners. It seems like nearly every management book I’ve ever read in the last 15 years cites Apple and Netflix as case studies. There is much to learn from these two organizations. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that many of the moves they’ve made in the last 15 years have been made while they sat atop gushing fountains of cash. Those tech giants can afford to make extravagant mistakes. In fact, they probably should - if they’re not spending massive amounts on interesting side bets, many of which won’t pay out, they’re squandering a strategic advantage. If, however, you’re not sitting on a gushing fountain of cash, cheap mistakes are more likely to be ones you can afford.

Making no mistakes is fantasy; making only expensive ones is foolish. Instead, make beaucoup cheap mistakes. Name that attitude for your team, model it, and celebrate it. 

If things go well in your endeavor, you will end up with an opportunity to act in a space where you are inexperienced. You get to expand to new markets or communities or launch a different product or absorb operations further out into the ecosystem around you. You’re likelier to succeed in that new space if you’ve built up the culture, habits, and skills for rapid, inexpensive learning. Cheap mistakes are your teachers. Enroll yourself and your team in their school. 

-Eric