15% Failure Rule: McKnight Principle

"As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

"Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

"Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow."
                                                                                                   
     ~ William McKnight, 3M Chairman

                       There are certain stories a person in marketing is encouraged never to share as it is seen as "ruining the myth" or "destroying the brand." But often the stories to success are littered with oceans of failure. Maybe that's possible for others, but us....we make a lot of mistakes. Most successful businesses that are creative try not for perfect, but for a certain level of working built in failure. 3M is famous for it's 15% free time rules. Google for 20%.