Why Smart Leaders Are Finally Paying People to Fail

Hey , Be honest.
When someone on your team messes up… do you secretly think “uh-oh, this is going on their record”? ☕😅

Now imagine this instead.

Steven Bartlett yes, the guy behind Diary of a CEO—just hired an executive with a very spicy title:

👉 Head of Failure & Experimentation
Not sales. Not marketing. Failure.

Meet Grace Miller. Her literal job is to make sure the company is wrong often enough. Wild, right?

Most offices punish failure. Steven pays for it.
Why? Because he knows something many leaders still ignore:

🚨 The Green Arrow Is Lying to You

You know the Green Arrow.
Sales up = celebration 🎉
Sales down = panic mode 😬

The smartest leaders—like Steven Bartlett and Sundar Pichai—understand this. At Google, they don’t just reward hits.
They reward “swing and a miss.”

Why?
Because rewarding only outcomes trains teams to play it safe. And “safe” is just another word for average.

Totally fair, but Innovation doesn’t pay rent — today.

So here’s the move: The 80/20 Split

• 80% → Green arrows (sales, efficiency, conversions)

• 20% → Experiments that build tomorrow

No recklessness. Just intention.

🧠 The Experiment Ledger (Steal This)

Track: Experiment, Cost to test, Cost of full-scale, Result, Savings

Fail fast = saved money + gained intelligence.
That’s your new ROI. That’s your new Green Arrow.

As Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Doing nothing is free… but it’s a bet that the future won’t change.
And that’s the most expensive bet of all.

So stop hiding failures.
Start monetizing them. 🚀

Because the only real failure?
A lesson you didn’t write down.

📚 Further Reading for Curious Leaders

• The Diary of a CEO – Steven Bartlett

• Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke

• Measure What Matters – John Doerr