Accenture Study Finds Companies Fail to Learn from Mistakes

A recent survey from management consulting firm Accenture (News - Alert) found that the number of U.S. companies that fail to learn from their past mistakes has nearly doubled from a similar survey the firm completed three years ago.

Accenture’s recent study of 500 U.S. companies shows that 60 percent of surveyed executives and managers admitted that their companies have not capitalized on past failures. Three years ago, only 36 percent of the same types of officials said their companies did not learn and attempt to improve on their current situations. Adi Alon, a managing director at Accenture, said that businesses, despite their strong desire to innovate, are not actively innovating in their respective fields because their own inaction has held them back.

“A significant gap exists between what U.S. companies want to achieve in the innovation arena versus what they are able to do,” Alon said. “They want to innovate yet they need to take different and bolder actions to achieve transformational, major revenue-generating innovation. True innovation requires aggressive changes in technologies, operating models, and talent.”

Alon’s comment suggests that there is a disconnect between the reality of what it would take a company to innovate and the actual steps they take to achieve such goals. This latest survey backs up that idea by revealing that 82 percent of respondents said their companies do not distinguish between incremental and large-scale change, so they use the same approaches to achieve different types of goals. In other words: the big ideas don’t match with big types of transformational efforts.

The study shows more unfavorable data when it reveals that 72 percent of respondents said their companies often miss targets to improve underdeveloped areas of business and that 67 percent said their companies shy away from taking risks. Together, those figures point to a glut of businesses that may be unaware of the large problem areas in their companies or how to fix them. They also show that, even if such companies were aware of those problem areas, they may be unwilling to take large steps to solve the underlying issues.

How can companies begin to step out of this mold? They could begin to invite participation by all employees to identify the underdeveloped parts of their organizations. From there, employees could be encouraged to pass on information that might help to increase efficiency or productivity. The bigger flow of information from within could allow for better practices on the trailing end.

That leaves the managers and executives with the task of stepping up their bravery. In order to fix problems, they need to push their businesses as a whole to take risks and try new practices. Without those steps taken to their maximum, the upward trend of failing to capitalize of failures could continue, and Accenture could find in another three years time that its surveyed group has moved upward of the 60 percent echoed here.