Our relationship with "Failure"

Most mornings I play Contexto with my boys (Liam, 9 and Kian, 7).  It’s a simple game - every day there is a new word and you have to guess what it is.  Every guess you take (of which you have unlimited) results in a "score".  You're either close (green bar), warm (orange) or no where near (pink ).  Every day we each take turns to guess until we get it.  When Kian makes a guess that’s pink, he's crestfallen.  "I'm rubbish" or "My guesses are the worst" will be the mantra's thrown at me over my Weetabix in this moment of high drama.

What I keep explaining is that every guess is a step closer, even the ones which are miles away.  A "rubbish" guess tells you something, just as a "good" guess does.  It moves you a step closer, however small, to the answer.  And you are in a better position from having that guess than you were before you made it. 

None of this lands successfully of course, but it illustrates the point.  Our relationship with failure is critical to our chances of success.

Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar, assumes something is always failing in Pixar.  His perspective is that as a leader, you can quickly lose touch as people are afraid to tell you things.  They hold back, they're "respectful", they don't want to give you bad news... all of which creates invisible barriers.  These emotional issues are always at play.  People are afraid of failure, there's an aura of danger around it.  Catmull intentional worked to remove barriers to fear that prevented creativity.

"Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of doing something new." 

When thinking about your relationship with failure, a key aspect to reflect on is your mindset.

I was at Microsoft when Satya Nadella took over.  One of the first announcements he made was to talk about the importance of moving to a Growth Mindset, and from "know it all's" to "learn it all's".  The whole company began using the term "Growth Mindset" every day.  It became a mantra.  What it helped to do was self-reflect on our own decision making and emotional response to situations by grounding everyone into a consistent mindset.  They’ve gone from a company that missed the tablet, smartphone and search phases of tech evolution, to being the leader for generative AI.  My experience at Microsoft wasn't an anomaly, with research showing that if people have a healthy relationship with feedback and challenge, if fuels Intrinsic Motivation.

Whilst it's clear that there are lot of positives to embracing failure/mistakes, and recognising their essential role in learning, innovating and improving, its not our default as humans.  As students we often fear failure; we worry about how we do in tests, putting our hand up in class, which sets we're put into etc…  All of this creates a relationship with the word "failure".

Our fear of failure continues as we move into the world of work.  We fear looking incompetent in our roles relative to our peers, we fear not succeeding at something, we fear looking ignorant. 

So, should we just embrace failure and take a bath in mistakes every day?  Will a company be successful if they celebrate failures like they do the wins? Is it that simple?

Amy Edmundson brings a thoughtful, research backed perspective to this debate. Her book "The Right Kind of Wrong" talks about 3 categories of failure:

1. Preventable Failures - there was a right way to do this task/routine, but it wasn’t used or followed. Usually fixed by paying attention/adjusting a process. This could be as basic as entering a wrong number into a spreadsheet.
2. Complex Failures - these occur in complicated situations where many factors interact in unpredictable ways. They can happen despite everyone doing their job correctly. These failures are inevitable, so how you respond to them is critical in maximising your opportunity to learn from them.
3. Intelligent Failures - these are the result of experiments and trying new things. They are valuable for learning and improving. This could be a test marketing campaign that lands badly. The value is in how you learn from it in a way that informs your next attempt.

Back to Ed Catmull, his perspective is that these types of mistakes and failures are part of the every day world of work, more so if you are innovating.

Success lies in our relationship with the concept of "failure", and how we respond to the inevitable moments when it happens.

How does your team talk about failure?

Thank you for reading, I'll get back to my Contexto...

#CultureHack

This weeks CultureHack is "The Elephant in the Room" courtesy of someone that told me once but I can't remember who!

I love this one.  It's provocative and it opens up discussions that wouldn’t normally be had.  It's also a good way to assess your teams level of Psychological Safety. 

Let me explain.

In your next team meeting, as you're heading into the last 20-30 minutes, just pause and ask "what is the thing we're not talking about as a team?".  You might be surrounded by puzzled expressions.  You might feel a huge urge to elaborate to fill the inevitable silence (at least… that’s what happens to me!).  BUT, if you let the silence happen, you might uncover an opinion/idea/perspective/problem that wouldn’t have had the space to happen otherwise. 

Let me know what you think!

Thanks as always for reading, and if you enjoy this content and want to develop your own skills in this space then click here!