In 2020, Harvard Business Review featured an article about how Booking.com had adopted a culture of experimentation across its entire business and saw dramatic differences. But it doesn’t just come from one team — experimentation is a mindset embedded in the way Booking.com employees approach their work. This translates to: No matter who you are or what role you have, you’re able to experiment freely.

It’s widely reported that a culture of experimentation actually drives business growth — it’s demonstrated by companies like Booking.com, Amazon, Apple and Google. In fact, Hélène Duval, who leads growth marketing for Google APAC, shared an article on experimentation in growth marketing, and the thing that stood out here was how laser-focused her team had become on sharing lessons learned: the highs and the lows.

And this is one of the reasons why many companies struggle to adopt this mindset: Culture. Shifting culture does not come easily or quickly. You need to think about both the macro and micro cultures present within your organization. Changing the culture of an entire business takes time and effort and is the result of recognizing all the smaller cultures that exist within it: teams, communities, departments — whatever scale they take. The magic happens when the connections made between cultural hotspots create an overarching sense of culture that aligns to the business values and mission more broadly.

Bear in mind that experimentation is about recognizing your ideas and assumptions are hypotheses to be tested, and until you try to prove yourself right or wrong, your assumptions remain just that: hypotheses. In a recent interview on “Diary of a CLO,” Danny Seals, experience design guru, shared: “The first rule to a good experiment is to acknowledge that you’re wrong. Anything you have at [the beginning] is solution seduction or massively biased. It always starts with that mindset, yet it’s the thing that always gets overlooked.”

If you want to embrace an experimental attitude that helps to drive impact, there are some fundamental steps you can take to help drive the experimentation conversation across your business. The key skill needed here is problem-solving. Plus, a sprinkling of getting comfortable stepping outside your safety net and embracing cross-company exploration.

There are four core points you need to consider here:

• • Cross-business alignment.
  • Clarity in communication.
  • Ask why more frequently.
  • Start small to get bigger.

Plus, underpinning them all: Acknowledge that you’re probably wrong.

What is an Experimental Mindset?

An experimental mindset is an approach to thinking and working that is characterized by a willingness to try new things, learn from failure and adapt to change. It is a mindset that is open to new ideas and possibilities, and that sees failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.

People with an experimental mindset are constantly looking for ways to improve their work and the world around them. They are not afraid to take risks or to make mistakes. They know that failure is a natural part of the learning process and they are willing to learn from their mistakes.

On a more practical level, adopting an experimental mindset means you’re constantly looking for ways to verify your approach and do things differently. Running experiments means that you’re likely to fail a lot, but when you succeed, the impact outweighs the cost of those failures.

Being able to prove that any failure is worth the risk is a core component of adopting this mindset, and it’s why it’s even more important to build cross-business alignment.

Cross-Business Alignment Is Key

It’s often said that L&D teams need to enhance their relationship-building skills across the business, but this is even more important when you want to start thinking differently about how you do things. Forging relationships with different teams can bring fresh perspective, but also allows you to dig into some of the challenges other teams are facing and ask questions about how that could change.

In turn, this allows you to identify relationships you can leverage to drive your vision forward, but also provides the chance to highlight individuals who may be resistant to change. Marketing your efforts via key relationships can help to strengthen your sway within the business. If you’re all working towards a similar goal, there will be opportunities to strengthen the culture change needed.

Earlier in 2023, the CIPD reported that 67% of L&D teams agree their strategy is well aligned to their organizational and people priorities. While this seems like a relatively positive statistic, it is 10% lower than in 2021, where 77% of teams felt they were well aligned. There has been recent scrutiny into L&D team business alignment, so although it might seem obvious that there is a clear decrease, what might actually be visible is the result of teams thinking more critically (and rightfully so) about how well aligned they really are with wider business priorities. The same can be said for the recognition of the impact L&D teams are having and how they contribute business value to the organization.

Before you can begin experimenting in earnest, you might need to spend some time shifting mindsets. But it might also be worth spending some time checking in on how well-aligned you really are with the wider business. Each of these things might take time and effort — but without taking these steps, you’re ultimately setting yourself up to fall down once the experiments start to fail. Without the knowledge that the point of experimentation is to test assumptions and fail, people will only see a lack of immediate impact. Mindset is everything here.

Clarity in Communication

If you’re trying to convince senior executives of the value in experimentation, you need to be really clear in what and how you’re communicating. This means being able to answer the “why” and the “how” easily:

• Why should we do this?
• Why should we open ourselves to risk?
• How will we deliver on this?
• How much investment is required?

Building on from cross-business alignment where relationship building is key, this takes it one step further so you can bring people on board by providing them with enough information to make informed decisions. A focus on business performance is essential here.

The other skill you’ll need to develop in this situation is storytelling, as it allows you to build empathy and create relationships between where you are now and where you would like to get to. Ultimately, humans are social creatures. Stories allow us to experience a sense of connection. Different techniques can trigger different emotions in us. Awareness of this impact shouldn’t be overlooked when you’re trying to gain buy-in or shift mindsets. It’s one of the reasons PwC labelled storytelling as the missing link for HR transformation. Helping people to share your vision in a way that means something to them is hugely impactful.

Asking Why

You may be prepared to answer “why” to your senior executives, but you also need to get comfortable asking “why” more frequently and to more people. Part of experimentation is not taking things at face value. The “five whys” get spoken about a lot. But really, the key is continuing to question until you’re satisfied you can test something against the right goal.

L&D teams should be problem-solvers at the core. This means thinking critically and creatively about what’s in front of you. Part of problem-solving effectively is breaking down larger scenarios into smaller, easier to manage parts. One way to do this is to question effectively. Using a framework such as the “five whys” could be useful here, but it doesn’t need to be rigorously adhered to. It’s simply a good reminder to keep digging until you get to the root cause of a perceived problem.

There’s always a starting point for what we think the problems are, but as we start to dig deeper, we end up in a very different place. Once teams have been able to identify the root cause of problems, they will then be able to create experiments that tackle the most pertinent things. At least at this point, the experiments will be focused on the right areas and the opportunity to target impact is magnified.

Overall, asking why requires you to be curious and open minded, but when it comes to experimentation, it’s always useful to think about how your opinions are often biased based on your own experiences. If each of your team takes the time to list out their own predictions at the start, reviewing them can be a useful exercise to uncover bias and reframe expectations.

Starting Small to Get Bigger

Mindsets are shifting, you’re asking “why” more frequently and you’re prepared to bring people along on the journey. But that doesn’t mean you need to go after everything at once or start with the biggest experiment you can think of. Experimentation usually works best when you’re testing lots of small assumptions concurrently, just like Booking.com does in its business.

Starting with smaller, less risky experiments also means you can test the waters and get more comfortable before exploring larger challenges. It might also be sensible to partner with an external provider to help guide you on the first steps to take and ease you into carrying out experiments.

If you want to edge toward a culture of experimentation, it means that you’re having to change people’s habits and expectations. It will happen faster if you introduce numerous small experiments that are less risky, with lower cost, and allow feedback to be shared more rapidly. It’s a win-win: Testing the waters and bringing people along for the ride.

Shifting Culture

It takes time. By its very nature, experimentation means there is an element of the unknown in what you’re doing. But adopting an experimental mindset has become crucial for L&D teams to stay ahead of the curve. This mindset encourages a willingness to try new approaches, embrace failure as a learning opportunity and continuously refine strategies based on insights gained from experimentation.