We've learned why some organizations are wildly successful, why some fail, and why others can’t seem to get out of their own way.
By some accounts, less than 5% of new business ventures or products succeed … and that may be generous.
Many organizations are on a never ending pursuit to find the next “magic” method, tool, or technique that will make them successful, while ignoring the things that could make them fail.
ZADA has recognized that success comes from analyzing business success AND failure. We believe that the lessons learned from openly and candidly investigating failure can be a source for individuals and organizations to reimagine their relationship with failure.
Why didn’t we see this coming?
The truth is that when we are asked this question by clients who ask us to help them with failures, we often tell them that your organization did see it coming, it’s just that the processes, tools and mindsets around failure have not become an integral part of the way they work.
Q. What is the first question any organization should ask after a failure?
A. What elements of our failure were correctly predicted by our prospective failure assessment?
Failure Lab
Even the best can fail. By making failure part of your planning process, you can identify potential sources of failure, identify strategies to address potential failures, and build processes to measure and monitor your efforts. We’ve developed FAILURE LAB a collection of facilitated process and tools to help organizations and teams effectively plan for failures from a variety of sources, including those that are not in your immediate control.
The Failure Workshop
Through a series of specially curated exercises and experiences designed to help you reimagine your relationship with failure, we uncover failure mindsets, identify critical assumptions and define “failure experiments” to de-risk your initiatives.
Action Prospectives
Proactive planning is perhaps the single best way to avoid project or organizational failures. We guide teams through a process to identify potential failures before they happen. Then we’ll use techniques to test out different responses and develop a robust set of strategies to mitigate risks.
After Action Retrospectives
Sometimes things just go wrong and you want to learn about the reasons for the failure and how to fix it. We’ve created a very different after action retrospective process that aims to uncover the real drivers of failure … our approach is to make the uncomfortable, comfortable.
PUBLIC EVENTS
ZADA Strategy is the presenting sponsor and hosts of Fuckup Nights RVA, the first chapter in Virginia that is part of the global Fuckup Nights movement. As one of more than 300 cities in 80 countries, Richmond is now on the map as one of the premier Fuckup Nights events in the U.S. This quarterly speaker series brings together speakers from all walks of life to share their "raw and unfiltered" stories of professional failure. As a source for individuals and organizations to reimagine their relationship with failure, FuckUp Nights RVA encourages both speakers and the audience to "get real" about failure and remember that failing does not mean that you're a failure!
PRIVATE EVENTS
We recognize that talking about your organization’s failures externally can be difficult and can have unintended consequences. We host private events that allow teams and organizations openly talk about failure as a catalyst for success. Structured around an organizational or project theme (e.g., diversity & inclusion, speed to market, etc.) these private sessions focus on real and authentic conversations to drive empathetic understanding and learning. These private events can be customized to your needs or can be structured like our public FuckUp Nights events. We then as a group work on organizational strategies to drive future successes.