In many areas of our lives — be it academic, personal or professional — we encounter encouragement to always try something new without being overly focused on the endpoint. We are inspired to take risks, spiritually buoyed by sayings like:

• Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
• If you never try, you’ll never know.
• “I never fail. I win or learn.” (Attributed to Nelson Mandela)

The same is true in tech, with the startup battlecry “Fail fast, fail often” urging burgeoning companies to lean into failure, learn from it, make pivots and try new things, and press forward until they reach success.

In his Harvard Business Review piece, “Building a Culture of Experimentation,” Stefan Thomke highlights a handful of companies’ approaches to constant experimentation as a driver for business growth. The CEO of online travel brand Expedia goes so far as to say:

“In an increasingly digital world, if you don’t do large-scale experimentation, in the long term — and in many industries the short term — you’re dead.”

With a mindset that “Change is the only constant” (attributed to Heraclitus) — or perhaps the more macabre “Evolve or die” for ye Darwin enthusiasts — this need to constantly brainstorm, hypothesize, and test new experiences in an increasingly competitive business environment seems like a no-brainer.

Yet, Thomke’s research shows that this simply isn’t true. He notes that firms that have adopted a culture of experimentation are the exception, not the rule, wondering:

If testing is so valuable, why don’t companies do it more?

Then, noting that experimentation comes with the possibility of failure, concludes:

For every experiment that succeeds, nearly 10 don’t — and in the eyes of many organizations that emphasize efficiency, predictability, and ‘winning,’ those failures are wasteful.

Thomke points out that it’s actually less risky to run a large number of experiments than a small number. On the one hand, he points out:

…When you conduct a large volume of experiments, a low success rate still translates into a significant number of successes, which, in turn, diminish the financial and emotional costs of the failures.

In other words: making even a comparatively small number of discoveries yields higher bottom line benefits than no discoveries at all.

On the other hand, he also notes that product iteration is not homogeneous across the lifecycle of design and development, and that earlier efforts tend to have lower success rates. This higher rate of “failures” at the start can actually be the more substantial course correction that your product or idea requires before the later successes that help you fine-tune.

What’s interesting — perhaps ironic — then is that failure to adhere to experimentation best practices appears to impact whether companies are actually effectively evaluating experimentation as a growth driver.

Specifically: companies are failing to gather enough data to support statistically significant conclusions about the value of experimentation. Or, otherwise put: companies are making conclusions about the benefits of experimentation without really effectively experimenting with experimentation. (Are you following? I know: it’s so #meta, like a dream within a dream.)

With attempts few and early results at times disappointing, companies are writing off the process without investing the time, effort, and resources to truly evaluate a framework known to drive innovation at the most successful brands across the globe.

Towards supporting a culture of experimentation, Thomke provides a list of tips, including democratizing the responsibility across functions and insisting upon data-driven decision making. He also advocates for a sort of psychological safety and mindset of curiosity where failures are seen not as mistakes but rather opportunities for learning.

Finally, change — be it cultural, behavioral, or functional — is hard. But it’s necessary — nay, required — for growth. So, be patient but diligent in your encouragement and always remember: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Steph Kong is a SF-based product marketer. She is trying to channel her pandemic angst into writing, as her therapist suggested. These thoughts are hers and hers alone.