Mindset 4: Comfort with failure
Being comfortable with the possibility of failure is accepting that an idea might not work, but trying it anyway to learn what we can. It’s about being honest, realistic and daring.
The personal and professional stigma attached to failure continues to be a significant barrier to innovation, often hindering what we try (and learn), in fear of not getting it right. If we want to achieve different outcomes, we have to try new ways of doing things and accept that some of our ideas won’t work.
Embracing failure asks us to:
Detach ourselves
Separate our ego, emotions, and sense of personal worth from our projects and ideas so that we can rephrase “I failed”, to “the idea/concept/model failed”. This means we can hold our ideas lightly and allow them to change, evolve, or be abandoned when they don’t work.
Reflect often
Consider what went wrong and what could be done differently next time.
Dispel the illusion of ‘eureka’ moments
Although we’re often told that brilliant ideas come naturally to talented, creative people, this is seldom true and unhelpful to perpetuate. More often than not, ‘Lightbulb moments’ arrive after many failed experiments.
Aim for small - not epic - failures
Different failings have different risks and implications. Prototyping early and often helps us test whether something will work, and take small, considered risks before we begin implementation.
Support others to fail
A culture where failure isn’t accepted can lead to hiding the truth, anxiety, and missed learning opportunities. Teams and organisations need to embrace the possibility of failure and support individuals to share what they learn along the journey.
Exercise
This is a reflective exercise that you can do by yourself. Talking about what we learned is an important part of changing the way we see failure though, so if there is someone you can share your experience with then we encourage you to reach out to them!
Step-by-step guide:
Using the ‘how to dissect a failure’ tool below, think of and write about a time where you felt like you failed at something. For example, perhaps you weren’t able to hand in a report on time.
Next, ask yourself why you thought you failed. For example, perhaps you didn’t have enough time to complete the report, or you weren’t clear about what was being asked of you.
Go deeper on the real reason behind your failure. One way to this is to ask yourself ‘why?’ several times, so that you can uncover the underlying root cause.
Finally, what would you do differently next time? Sometimes failure happens beyond our immediate control, and in spite of our best preparation. If this is the case, what steps might you take to avoid a similar situation in the future, or who might you need to connect with to address the bigger challenges?
Reflecting in this way helps us to deconstruct failures so that we can take action earlier on to get a better result in future scenarios. Talking about them with colleagues de-stigmatises failure too, supporting us to see our failures as necessary learning experiences that lead to improvement. You can also share your reflections using the #LearningFirstBDA hashtag on Twitter.
Click on the image to download this tool
SUGGESTED TIME:
15 minutesLEVEL OF DIFFICULTY:
EasyMATERIALS NEEDED:
The 'How to dissect a failure' toolPARTICIPANTS:
You can do this by yourself, but reflecting on your experience with failure with a partner will be of benefit