Workplace Wellness that Works: 10 Steps to Infuse Well-Being and Vitality into Any Organization

Step 9Launch and Iterate(The Experimentation Imperative)

The story goes that Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before he succeeded in inventing the lightbulb. When asked by a reporter how he felt about having failed so many times, Edison replied, “I didn't fail 1,000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” In other words, he launched and iterated a thousand times.

Similarly, a recent Forbes blog post describes how “it's not innovation that sets Silicon Valley apart from other centers of technological development—it's a willingness to iterate.”¹ This iterative process—or launching a product into the marketplace earlier, seeing what happens and then making rapid iterations after—is the important, powerful process of embracing failures, learning from them, and then making improvements. This practice of experimentation and refinement happens in a participatory and collaborative fashion between different groups, and it's the often messy but productive heart of creativity, innovation, and, ultimately, success.

This is exactly the kind of spirit you should bring to your wellness movement—with individual employees, with the programs you develop or select, and with the organization as a whole. Very simply, the launch-and-iterate approach means learning through doing: Launching activities, programs, and strategies before they're perfect; evaluating and learning from the ...