Giving Permission to Fail Motivates Increased Sales and Productivity

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Awarding annual bonuses and paying employees based on goal achievement have long been considered the main way to motivate performance, but there could be another way to increase productivity in the office.Research presented at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, finds that giving employees permission to fail can increase confidence and lead to increased sales and productivity in the workplace. This study, “Cultivating the Confidence Cycle,” was conducted over a two-year period, across genders, and with multiple companies in three different countries (Brazil, South Africa and the United States).
At Davos, Catherine Tinsley, the Raffini Family Professor of Management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and academic director of the Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Institute, presented the results with Rick Goings, Chairman & CEO of Tupperware Brands Corporation. Cathy and her co-authors collaborated with Tupperware Brands to study data related to companies with a sales focus.
The study shows organizational cultures that re-position workers’ beliefs about failure have, on average, employees who are 30 percent more confident, which leads to performance gains.
“When we punish failure, we dis-incentivize exploring new ideas, which can stymie creativity and limit success,” said Jason Schloetzer, the William and Karen Sonneborn Term Associate Professor of Business Administration at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “While many corporation executives, managers, and team leaders tend to be risk-averse, this research could encourage them to rethink the way they approach business.”
The research team, which also includes  Matthew A. Cronin, an associate professor of management at George Mason University School of Business, emphasize the importance of organizational culture in cultivating workers’ confidence. Messages to reframe and disempower failure cannot just come directly from a supervisor, but from the organizational culture that conveys and reinforces the confidence-boosting message to employees.
“It is not about personality,” Tinsley said. “Confidence is not a fixed trait, but rather ...

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