Curiosity vs. Control - Shaping Company Culture

Leaders must embrace both execution and experimentation and enable both cultures to?thrive

Once upon a time, the Tupperware product line was so successful that the brand name became a household word. Yet, after nearly 80 years in business, on September 17, 2024 Tupperware Brands filed for bankruptcy . The rise and fall of Tupperware is an abject lesson in the critical importance of company culture?—?the push and pull between execution and exploration, between implementation and innovation, between control and curiosity.

In today’s business landscape, an organization’s cultural approach to risk determines its ability to thrive.

Companies tend to fall into one of two camps: those that foster innovation by embracing curiosity and experimentation to reduce the risk of becoming irrelevant, and those that drive operational excellence with a focus on control and execution to reduce the risk of failure. Both approaches have their place in organizational culture. And, each mindset has distinct implications for long-term viability. The most successful organizations can embrace these two conflicting cultures?—?maximizing profit and growth in existing markets while developing new markets and business model innovations.

Innovation drives early success

Tupperware’s early success was built on two business model innovations?—?the product and the channel.

Earl Tupper was by nature a curious man. In the 1930s, Tupper worked as a chemist for DuPont, developing innovative new plastics for household and commercial use. In 1938, Tupper left DuPont and founded the Tupper Plastics Company. Tupper and Tupper Plastics spent most of a decade experimenting with different plastics and product designs before they settled on the Wonderlier Bowl in 1946.

Channel innovation

An innovative product isn’t enough to build a business without a strong go-to-market channel. Tupper struggled with sales and marketing. Luckily for Tupper, he hired Brownie Wise who saw the potential in developing post-war women entrepreneurs to build a direct sales channel, which we now know as the Tupperware Party.

Wise excelled in execution, and led the company’s growth for most of a decade.

Curiosity resents control, and control punishes curiosity

Natural tension between Curiosity and Control

Tupper was an innovator?—?a creator and explorer who wondered “What if we could…” Wise was a visionary with a operational mindset and strength in execution?—?an implementor who asked “How will you…” As often happens, the creative mindset and the control mindset clashed. By the late 1950’s, Wise had become a media darling?—?an early female executive in a critical role and the first woman on the cover of Business Week magazine. Her charisma and execution skills put her on the stage at company events and gatherings of the Tupperware Ladies. Tupper, meanwhile had not invented anything new of any significance. As the focus on the organization moved from invention to implementation, Wise’s operational excellence, more that Tupper’s curiosity, drove company value. Tupper became jealous of her success and fired Wise in 1958. Tupper subsequently struggled to operate the company, sold the company he founded to Rexall Drug later that year, and disappeared from the landscape.

Decades of operational excellence

With Tupper gone, Rexall managed the Tupperware brand profitably, leveraging the original two innovations to great success. Rexall Drug rebranded as Dart Industries, continuing to execute on the Tupperware product line. Dart later merged with Kraft Industries. And in 1996, Tupperware Brands Corporation spun out of Dart & Kraft, and Tupperware became its own public company (NYSE: TUP).

Failure to adapt in an environment of change increases survival risk

New, innovative competitors eat away at market share

Ironically, a focus on not failing creates its own form of risk. Despite, or more accurately, because of, a successful culture encouraging operational excellence, Tupperware failed to develop new products that would help the company avoid irrelevance. As patents expired, competitors to the Tupperware product line proliferated. Strong brands challenged Tupperware with innovative products they could move though well-established sales channels. The Clorox Company, which established its trash bag product line in the 1960s, launched a line of ultra-inexpensive, plastic storage containers in the 1980s. Similarly, SC Johnson’s Ziploc brand launched their own ultra-inexpensive storage containers in the 2000s. At the high end of the market, Pyrex and OXO marketed great looking glass storage containers, and Rubbermaid developed their plastic Brilliance containers with a level of quality rivaling that of glass. Tupperware was trapped in the valley of death?—?too expensive to compete on one side and too flimsy to compete on the other.

Consumer behavior evolves, and organizations need to evolve as well

Failure to adapt to a new consumer environment

Tupperware’s iconic direct-sales model, the Tupperware party, once symbolized innovation in marketing. But, as consumer behavior shifted in the digital age, Tupperware struggled to adapt its sales channels. Instead of transitioning to e-commerce and engaging with customers online, they largely stuck to their traditional party model.

The rise of online shopping and evolving retail trends led to declining sales for Tupper’s company, as consumers preferred the convenience of buying kitchenware on platforms like Amazon. Meanwhile, competitors rapidly adopted digital sales strategies. Tupperware’s slow embrace of e-commerce and lack of investment in digital marketing left them unable to keep up, further exacerbating their revenue and market share problems.

In the end, despite a culture of operational excellence, Tupperware failed to innovate new products and new sales strategies, ultimately spelling the end of the company.

Fail-safe vs. Safe to Fail

David Bland, author of Testing Business Ideas, frames the challenge of control vs. curiosity as a conflict between organizations optimized to avoid failure vs. organizations optimized to experiment and learn quickly.

When failure is an existential risk, try hard to not fail

Fail-safe cultures

A fail-safe culture is centered around preventing failure at all costs. It prioritizes predictability, risk avoidance, and tightly controlled processes. Organizations with this mindset design systems to minimize the likelihood of mistakes, a method suited to industries where errors can lead to severe consequences, such as healthcare or aviation.

There are industries and scenarios where a fail-safe approach isn’t just practical, it’s essential. When the cost of failure is too high?—?whether it’s human lives, financial stability, or reputational risk?—?organizations need to prioritize caution and precision. A fail-safe culture, in these cases, ensures that the groundwork is solid and risks are minimized before moving forward.

However, in industries where adaptability and speed are critical, fail-safe cultures can stifle innovation. Alex Osterwalder, co-founder of Strategyzer, argues, “Fail-safe organizations tend to over-engineer solutions, trying to anticipate every possible outcome. This rigidity leaves little room for creative problem-solving or responding to unexpected market shifts.”

David Bland, adds that in such environments, companies risk falling behind. “Fail-safe mindsets are inherently conservative. If you’re not willing to take risks, you’re not learning, and if you’re not learning, you’re not growing.”

In control-driven cultures, leaders model and demand rigorous planning and accountability for failure. In control-driven cultures, experimentation represents chaos and risk and even small failures are typically punished. As with Tupperware, fail-safe is ultimately risky as the failure to innovate eventually opens the door to competition and irrelevance.

When survival is threatened by a changing environment, the ability to adapt ensures a continued existence

Safe-to-Fail cultures

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a safe-to-fail culture encourages experimentation, allowing teams to test ideas with the understanding that not every attempt will succeed. In this environment, failures are seen as learning opportunities, crucial for innovation and growth. Companies like Google and Amazon are known for embracing this mindset, allowing for small, controlled failures to inform larger breakthroughs.

Osterwalder supports this approach, explaining, “In a safe-to-fail culture, experimentation is the core strategy. You test, you learn, and you iterate. The small failures along the way guide you toward a more robust, innovative solution.”

It’s about creating psychological safety. Employees need to feel they can take calculated risks without fear of retribution. When leaders model this behavior, it empowers teams to innovate freely.

In Testing Business Ideas, Bland writes that companies adopting a safe-to-fail mindset are better equipped to navigate uncertainty. “The future is unpredictable, and the best way to prepare is by learning what works and what doesn’t. A safe-to-fail culture builds resilience by constantly evolving through trial and error.”

In curiosity cultures, leaders must model and celebrate exploration and be willing to engage in their own experiments. When leaders participate in experimentation, it sends a message to the entire organization that curiosity and risk-taking are valued.

The challenge with safe-to-fail cultures is that teams that innovate well tend to execute poorly. These cultures punish team members who are seen as uncreative or rigid in their approaches, and these teams resent top-down control and forced processes, even when they would help the organization generate the profits that R&D teams need to continue to thrive.

Control resents chaos. And, experimentation fails to thrive in a process-bound environment

The split-brain organization

Successful organizations must support both approaches. Osterwalder and Bland both advocate for controlled experimentation, where risks are contained and the potential for failure is managed but not eliminated.

This split-brain approach allows companies to protect core functions while fostering innovation in areas where agility is needed. The key is knowing where to lean on control for stability and where to let curiosity take over to drive progress. Companies that strike this balance can innovate without losing sight of the critical importance of growth and profitability.

The locus of this split-brain culture needs to be at the executive level. Individual teams do not need to be able to do both execution and exploration. Leaders should hire and reward both types of employee, as deployed to the right team. The employee’s job is to execute without fail, or to explore without fear. Leaders should keep the teams and cultures separated so they don’t interfere with each other. Your job as an organizational leader is to successfully hold the contrast and dissonance between the two cultures in your own mind. When you do, your organization will thrive and remain relevant in a changing world.