Better Ideas Through Failure

Companies Reward Employee Mistakes to Spur Innovation, Get Back Their Edge

To pitch a prospective client for her ad agency, Amanda Zolten knew she a had to take a risk. But the client’s product–kitty litter–posed a unique challenge.

Lucy Belle, Ms. Zolten’s cat, furnished the answer.

Before she and her team met with six of the company’s executives, Ms. Zolten buried Lucy Belle’s mess in a box of the company’s litter and pushed it under the conference-room table. No one noticed until Ms. Zolten pointed it out–and the fact that no one had smelled it.

Shocked, several executives pushed back from the table. Two left the room. After a pause, those who remained started laughing, says Ms. Zolten, a senior vice president with Grey New York. "We achieved what we hoped, which was creating a memorable experience," she says.

She won’t know for a few weeks whether Grey won the business. But her boss, Tor Myhren, has already named Ms. Zolten the winner of his first quarterly "Heroic Failure" award–for taking a big, edgy risk.

By SUE SHELLENBARGER

Full Story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204010604576594671572584158.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_careerjournal