By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

“Fail fast.” You hear it everywhere. Organizations and leaders toss this phrase around as the golden ticket to innovation. It sounds bold, visionary — even inspiring. But for many employees, the words trigger not excitement but uncertainty and apprehension. If the goal is for failure to be embraced, why does it still feel so dangerous to employees?

This was a topic that I dove into on last week’s UNSCRIPTED podcast with Gyner Ozgul, CEO of Fortis Fire & Security. We took a deep dive into five untold truths of service leadership, and one of them was “we say failure is essential to innovation, but everyone still avoids it.” If the goal is to create a culture where employees fear failure less, throwing around catchphrases won’t be enough – and we need to start by exploring why failure still feels so dangerous to employees.

Fear Runs Deep

First and foremost, you need to accept the reality that your employees likely don’t believe that when you say “fail fast,” you mean it. And here’s a really important question to reflect on: do you?

Assuming the answer is yes, then you need to be empathetic to the fact that most employees have worked in cultures where failure was to be avoided at all costs and even punished, sometimes severely. A leader with a fresh perspective on innovation won’t undo years of conditioning with a new ideal and a few great pep talks. It takes intention, time, and effort to reset the narrative.

But beyond building that trust, there’s another major stumbling block, which is that permission-to-fail proclamations aren’t often paired with enough specifics. “Fail fast” is only empowering if it comes with clarity, structure and support. “Leaders may believe they’re empowering their teams by giving permission to take risks,” says Gyner. “But without ample specifics, what you’re unknowingly doing in parallel is creating a lot of anxiety.”

Building Trust Requires Walking the Talk

To make your “fail fast” intention one that is actionable, the focus should be on both building belief in your leadership and the authenticity behind your mantra, as well as offering enough clarity that employees feel empowered instead of overwhelmed.

If we start with the trust aspect, here are some factors to consider:

• The message bears repeating. Especially if a “fail fast” mentality is new to your team, communicating the premise once or even a handful of times won’t do the trick. Permission to let go of perfection is something your employees may need to hear on an ongoing basis, in a genuine manner. And when they do fail at something, how you react is crucially important.
• Vulnerability from leaders works wonders. You can tell your team 100 times it’s OK for them to fail but seeing you do it just once and own it will have a greater impact. When leaders acknowledge their own mistakes, explain what was learned, and show that failure is not career-ending, psychological safety grows
• Celebrate effort versus (only) success. If you wonder whether employees doubt that it’s really OK to fail and learn, consider what you celebrate. If you only celebrate successes, you aren’t really reinforcing your message. Celebrate effort, creativity, bright ideas – even when they don’t pan out, and extracting the learnings from making missteps. This helps make it clear that bringing mistakes forward is part of the process — not a cause for blame or shame.

Clarity Turns Platitudes into Potential

Permission to “fail fast” that is offered like a blank check leave employees wondering: What does failure really mean in this context? How soon should I realize I’m failing? What’s at stake for me — my reputation, my job? These questions swirl, unaddressed, undermining the very creativity leaders hope to ignite.

Most organizations are quite competent at defining success, but employees also need to know what counts as failure. “Defined success outcomes are not the same as having defined failure. If I’m close but not quite, am I failing or not failing? You really need to be very clear about what failure looks like too,” urges Gyner. “Vague encouragement is insufficient; employees want specifics — what are the parameters, what constitutes acceptable risk, and how do we distinguish between innovative failure and daily performance errors?”

Here are some tips to remove ambiguity and guide ambition:

• Define the scope. Leaders must define the rules of engagement for experimentation. How long should a project go before it’s reviewed? What exactly is “failing fast?”
• Regular check-ins with clear milestones can prevent costly mistakes, scope creep, and lingering uncertainty. Innovative projects that drift on for months before anyone checks in, leading to wasted resources and frustration.
• Explicitly separate innovative failure from day-to-day operational mistakes. These are not the same and shouldn’t be treated with the same measuring stick. Employees should know where free exploration ends and where core responsibilities begin.

Gyner also points out the reality that the idea of failure can raise fears for the employer, too. “From the employer’s perspective, failures can be expensive. Failures can be painful to an organization. Sometimes failures can be catastrophically bad,” he explains. “Yes, failures provide valuable epiphanies and drive innovation and we can’t be scared to try new things for these reasons, but for me, this is why it’s crucial to define it well.”

So “fail fast” can be empowering — but only when it’s accompanied by clarity, structure, and support. If leaders truly want teams to experiment and learn, they must set the stage. Define the boundaries. Normalize open conversations about what worked, what didn’t, and what was learned. Most importantly, lead by example and show that missteps offer opportunities for progress.