4 letters. Starts with an F. Typically used when things aren’t going so well, and frowned upon in certain circles …

Yes, you guessed it – Fail. But here’s the deal – we are afraid to talk about it, and we’re definitely afraid to do it. And why is this? Maybe because our systems of reward and recognition are geared to celebrate success, outcomes, outputs, results, double-digit growth etc.

We don’t talk about ‘fail’. So let’s do it now I set out on a task. I’ve never done it before. I seek knowledge on this task, and I get it. And now I have to do it, knowing full well that the first time I will probably fail, hopefully without witnesses (or if it turns out to be funny, hopefully, it was videoed, and can go viral and make me an overnight internet sensation).

So I fail, and I modify my process a little and fail again, and I tweak here, and fine-tune there, and eventually, I can ‘do it’. Our knowledge has now become a ‘skill’. Others might now see the output, and value it, and over a period of time, this becomes ‘experience’. 

But we forget about the many failures that went into creating this capability we call ‘experience’.

We forget about the learning, sometimes fast, sometimes painfully slow, that was required to get from ‘knowing nothing’ to ‘experienced’.

We forget that success is fleeting, singular, and temporary and that everything else is a failure. And we absolutely forget that ‘learning is simply the process of repeated failure’. And that it’s OK.

Failing is learning and learning is failing – it’s the same thing. If we stopped rewarding the outcome, and instead reward the process of achieving the outcome, maybe the outcome would take care of itself.

Kind of like rewarding a basketballer for shooting 1,000 hoops per day, rather than whether the team makes the final…

If your organisation has an awards system, try adding a category called ‘Failure and Learning’. Imagine an organisation that learns from its failures, and doesn’t repeat them …

Courage comes in many forms.

Thanks for reading

Simon White