Learning Incentives: Know the Failure Points

Several aspects of managing the generational divide in learning were discussed, and some great ideas were exchanged. For one of the research, we identified experimentation as a key core competency for innovation and digital transformation. The case study we looked at was Pitney Bowes. It is fascinating that this 100-year-old company has transformed over multiple years. Pitney Bowes built its business by providing mail machines to companies. With the decline of traditional mail, it looked like in early 2000, that they may not make it. But then something significant happened. They started trying several digital things without worrying about failure in the early 2000s. A few engineers attempted to build what was then called Click Stamps Online. This was a big failure but gave them the foundation to print shipping labels for eBay.  From there, they started commanding huge market share for shipping label prints, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today Pitney Bowes continues to dominate in the shipping software and solution and various APIs associated with that. This is just a fascinating story, all enabled by a few people and a supportive culture. It is stories like this, emphasize the need for making experimentation and communicating that failure from experimentation is acceptable is very critical.