Mistake of the Week Award at Keebler Cookies & Crackers
By: BusinessClassInc.comWe found another great article about Mistake of the Month and Mistake of the Week Awards – this one written by Bob Bapes, known as The IdeaDoc.
Here are a few excerpts. Note the sub-messages about morale & productivity.
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…I remembered a celebration of failure that we used when I was at Keebler Cookies and Crackers. We were an aggressive group of marketers without a lot of money. As a result, we were always trying something different, weird, cutting edge or outlandish in developing, promoting and advertising cookies and crackers….
Some of the ideas worked and many did not. In order to keep us focused on innovation and to make it ok to keep trying, we began celebrating our failures. We presented a traveling statue to the person who messed up the best the previous week….
The point we made is that it is ok to fail as long as the error is one of action, not inaction and that we learned from it.
Mistake of the Month Club can be just what you need to get your team to take the risks necessary to reach breakthrough ideas.
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You can read the entire article by clicking here.
I’ll hope you will read, enjoy and maybe even make a new discovery or two.
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2 Responses to “Mistake of the Week Award at Keebler Cookies & Crackers”
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My service frat had an award named for the first big mistaker who bought way too many flowers for a fund raiser. Needless to say, it was not a coveted award. Even though the awardees were usually risk takers (in a good way) who strove to do bigger and better charitable events, no one wanted to “win” it so the award itself often stymied innovation. I think the award finally faded away once my mother “won” it for having two too many sons (my brother and I were the only two children she had:). She actually came to campus to give the award away the next semester but I can’t remember it ever being awarded again. So if a “mistake of the month” award is given, MUCH care must be taken to ensure that it conveys a desire to award innovation in a positive way. Otherwise, no one will take any risks for fear of being a winner of the mistake award!
Agreed! Thank you for sharing and clarifying. MUCH MUCH care must be given to making sure that receiving such an award is a reward – or at least reinforcement for handling the mistake well! PS Your Mom sounds like a cool woman with a cool sense of humor.