Make Mistakes, Plenty of Them!
Invented as a result of an accident, the error in trial and error, Post-its were featured in a new Inc. Magazine article: 9 Brilliant Inventions Made by Mistake.
1. Penicillin
2. The Slinky
3. Wheaties
4. Post-it Notes
5. The Color Mauve
6. Plastics
7. Saccharine
8. Corn Flakes
9. Pacemaker
Plenty of others could have been added to that list of nine, for example:
In 1853 Levi Strauss mistakenly brought a bunch of canvas to San Francisco thinking he’d sell tents to gold prospectors. It turns out they preferred to sleep under the open sky. But what they really wanted was durable pants, so he turned his cloth into a new business. Ivory Soap was “invented” when a Procter and Gamble worker went to lunch and accidently left the mixer on. They shipped the defective bars anyway, and soon customers wanted more of the soap that floats. The Microwave. Percy Spenser was an engineer that worked for the company, Raytheon. He noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket melted after walking by a Megnetron. That got the wheels turning and a few short years later, he invented the first microwave oven. Hot Pocket lovers everywhere would probably like to thank him. Velcro: Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral was hiking when he noticed little burrs on his pants. Upon further inspection he realized that the burrs would cling to anything that was loop shaped. After recreating the loops, he was in business. Children that have not yet learned to tie their shoes are certainly appreciative for this invention. Teflon - A scientist named Roy Plunkett worked for a company by the name of DuPont. He was working on a project to make refrigerators safer by trying to replacing the refrigerants. He noticed that one of the samples he was working with left a slippery resin that was chemical and heat-resistant. And now we can all make food without having to use oil to keep it from sticking to the pan. Coca-Cola - John Pemberton wanted to help cure people’s headaches. The two main items he worked with were cocoa leaves and cola nuts. His lab accidentally mixed them together in carbonated water one day and Coca-Cola was born. Without John refreshing creation, my Jack and Coke would never exist. Radioactivity, Dynamite, Modern Anesthesia, Super Glue, X-Rays.
Tom Peters tells us to celebrate failures. In The Little Big Things, he posits his Theory of Failure:
To succeed, you have to try more stuff than the other guy — fast.
If you try more stuff in a hurry, you’ll make lots of mistakes.
Hence, screwing up a lot is a very good sign of progress—perhaps the only sure sign.
If we aim to (more or less) maximize screw-ups, then we must do more than “tolerate” screw-ups.
We must “encourage” screw-ups.
We must celebrate screw-ups!
