Your team is demotivated after failed innovation attempts. How can you reignite their passion and drive?

Acknowledge the setback: Be open about the failure and its impact Validate the team's feelings of disappointment. Reframe failure as learning: Emphasize that innovation inherently involves risk and potential failure Highlight famous innovations that emerged from initial failures

As a high-performance coach, I've seen how acknowledging efforts boosts morale and retention. At a UK Bio-Tech company, the sales team struggled despite their best efforts and meticulous preparations for their new product launch during the first 6 months. To revive their passion, I organized a private debrief to openly discuss outcomes in a safe space. I highlighted their pipeline growth, client calls, demos, and detailed market research, celebrating small wins to shift focus from failure to learning. Sharing similar experiences from other teams provided perspective and gave them hope. Recognising efforts should be the benchmark as it builds appreciation, and drives motivation and performance.

while these innovation attempts haven't yielded the desired outcome, let's not view them as failures, but as valuable learning experiences. We've gained crucial insights into what works and what doesn't, which is a vital step in the innovation process. Remember, even the most successful inventions often went through numerous revisions before achieving greatness.

Conduct a thorough post-mortem: Analyze what went wrong without blame Identify valuable lessons and insights. Celebrate effort and progress: Recognize the hard work and creativity invested Highlight any partial successes or unexpected positive outcomes

Sometimes teams can be 95% right but not focus on the 5% that will get the results, but it is important to help them see that their 95% effort is being acknowledged and work more on the 5% that yields results. I recently worked with a small but growing SMMA facing various challenges. The new team were underperforming. To address this, we identified the strengths in what they were doing and weaknesses. I presented it to them in numbers term. By focusing on these findings, we turned their failures into learning opportunities. this approach allowed the team to view the task at hand as surmountable knowing they were doing a lot right and just needed refinements.

Too often, team managers tend to "focus out" because the memories are painful, analyzing failure may reveal their own part in it, and they fear that revisiting issues will increase demotivation. And, let's face it: it might! Retrospectives are risky moments where the risk of slipping into blame and shame is high. A solution is to develop a practice that completely rules out blame and shame during these sessions. Benevolence and the desire to improve must prevail. This is difficult and requires leaders to invest significant energy and be wary of themselves. But it's worth it: if well managed, retrospectives are the best way to build a bright future.

Set new, achievable goals: Break down larger objectives into smaller, manageable tasks Create quick wins to rebuild confidence Encourage experimentation: Promote a "fail fast, learn fast" mentality Set up low-risk opportunities for creative problem-solving

After a setback, resetting goals is very important. I helped a sales team at a Bio-Tech company after an underwhelming product launch. Despite strong planning, the sales campaign flopped. We conducted a post-mortem analysis to learn from the mistakes, focusing on misaligned targeting and insufficient client engagement. Adopting the "fail fast, learn quickly" mindset, we set new, achievable goals as agreed by the teams. This approach helped shift focus from the painful past failures to future possibilities, reigniting their drive and focus. This method, supported by DX Tech and Productfolio, allows for continuous improvement.

Innovation is built within the culture of a workplace. It comes from the top down. Team leads, directors, managers and anyone in a leadership position needs to be the ones promoting innovation. Create space for others to share their ideas. And remember ideas are important but goal setting is the cornerstone around innovation. Once you have an idea it is about creating a strategic SMART goal that your team can execute on.

Building team confidence by emphasising the importance of failure for innovation: Acknowledge the failure openly - avoid blame and focus on learning Reframe failure as learning - discuss how this knowledge improves future efforts Share innovation success stories - provide examples of famous innovations born from failures Encourage rapid prototyping - promote quick, low-cost experimentation Implement "fail-fast" methodologies - teach techniques for early idea evaluation Lead by example - share your own experiences with failure and learning Building confidence around failure is about shifting perspective from seeing failure as an endpoint to viewing it as a crucial step in the innovation journey.

Celebrar todos y cada uno de los logros que se tengan; por peque?os que parezcan, durante toda la gestión del proyecto. Al final del día son esas peque?as o grandes victorias, la fuente inagotable de energía para el capital humano.