Failure Breeds Success + An Action
Well I’ve said it for a while, for instance here in November and I know there are a LOT of people who have said it before me, but it appears that failure is now all the rage - see Business Week’s cover story today ‘Failure Breeds Success’…
Following an amazing conversation with my friend Jochem Innovation and Creativity and Conversations Spaces… and how "the best ideas come from when unpredictable paths cross each other…"
"when unpredictable paths cross and interact - yet this intersection space is the space our world and organizations play in least (we do the opposite: we create departments that’s function is singular…) - we dicussed "why" we when we know the most energy is in this space is we don’t seem to stay there / go there…we discussed this in depth but the relationship back to failure was clear:
Playing in these paths is challenging for many of us because the outcomes are unpredictable, and uncertain. For instance, I can guarentee a result(s) from great conversation in a safe healthy space, but I can’t guarentee what - that is the ’scary’ part for people (and the hard part to sell)…it opens them up to criticism and the possibility of failure. The only way I have found that I can be successful in showing these ‘new ways’ (old ancient ways) is when people have a positive experience of this ‘other way’…
So in relationship to failure - who has had a positive experience with Failure? Edison did…and you can too! By looking at what you learned from Failure! ie the positive things that came out of ‘failure’
The Action (Jochem heard this on a podcast, a Professor did this in a class)
- Write a Failure Resume/CV
- Write what you have learned from the various elements
Let me know how it works - our deadline is July 20th
PS This is an interesting alternative and I imagine will feel FREEING as writing my own resume sends me into a spin that I haven’t done enough / am not proud of stuff…will let you know, and do let me know. Also I recommend doing this with a friend you trust who also does it, so that you have a safe context to explore failure and thus maximise the positive experience!
PPS This is the outcome of a dialogue held by Jochem and I today -dialogue in the sense that we went with the flow of what came up and had no agenda other than to listen to each other and learn
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July 6th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
I have a two things to add to Natalie’s words. The first point is short the second a bit longer.
What you read above is the result of about 95 minutes talking to each other on Skype. So this is the outcome of a free conversation. Value? Unknown so far. (Maybe something with advanced Black-Scholes modeling can make a sense out of it).
My second comments leads back to a reading a did nearly two years ago for my business school class “Innovation & Knowledgeâ€. My professor Finn Valentin asked us to read an article by Paul Nightingale. The title of the article is “A cognitive model of innovationâ€. I will cite the conclusion of the article:
How does this relate to what Natalie writes above? Nightingale basically argues that exploring thoughts does not directly translate into innovation; we are asking the wrong question in order to innovate. However, as we start to understand our thoughts better we might be able to relate them to a desired end result. Thus, from our exploration we basically learn what works and what doesn’t, this might help us to innovate at a later stage. What can we conclude? We can conclude that exploring, following are interest or something else adds to our problem solving capabilities, and are might or might not become useful at a certain point of time. If they do become useful the exploring process was valuable, if they don’t it was useless. Unfortunately for controle-freaks, we don’t know what will be useful and what won’t.
Links:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V77-3V7SDFW-3&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F1998&_alid=421486509&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5835&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8e8143bd4642a466f533c3b1225af4bd
July 7th, 2006 at 5:03 am
OOH thanks Jochem - am really interested in the concept of “from unknown to known” … often in business/organizations contexts, consultants are hired to ‘prove’ or take responsibility for what is known to need to be done / wanted to be done and ‘prove it’…I prefer the opposite styles, based on the idea that often we aren’t clear on what we want and move from this state to greater states of clarity and insight, innovation and creativity…
Also wanted to bookmark an interesting thought from a business communicator colleague who said: what if one of the elements of your process was the ‘mud’ yet the outcomes are results…focus on ‘the type of results’ that have been gained from your process over the other approach…what happens in the room doesn’t really matter, especially if in participating in the process there are great outcomes and people have a great/positive ‘other’ experience
July 7th, 2006 at 5:06 am
One more thing - one of the ‘challenges’ with failure is that many organizations aren’t structured to accept it and certainly even if they do, they don’t often reward it…many of our performances indicators measure for failures lack…thus there is no impetus within an organization….changing the headspace needs to come with the integration of a change in policies and opportunities and expectations of individuals…otherwise you end up with an ‘innovation’ department rather than a company that has innovation as part of its day-to-day operations and story…the former being the common experience today.
July 7th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Consultants generally work in a way that they can justify what they do (read: data-driven). The only data that exists is of the past, and therefore it will be very difficult for them to break with the past and thus innovate in radical terms.
Data-driven innovation is mainly incremental, since it improves your current products.
July 7th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
agreed - though I have also been having innovative concepts coming from focusing on what has worked in the past and present…there is a lot of positive energy/enthusiasm that comes from a discussion on great experiences…that can provide a lot of momemtum, and ’safety’ to step out and imagine new ways of doing and being for organizations, individuals and beyond…sometimes innovation is just seeing something ‘old’ with new eyes
August 5th, 2006 at 2:20 am
Visual reporter Eileen blogged this post, thanks!
http://eileencleggvisualinsight.blogspot.com/2006/07/communications-consultant-natalie.html
Her work is always worth a read
November 28th, 2006 at 12:35 am
THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom? — Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
Grook by Peit Hein
May 18th, 2007 at 4:57 am
O, Interesting idea. Yes,
you are a philosopher.
May 24th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
You have a beautiful site. l ;)
July 16th, 2007 at 12:12 am
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August 17th, 2007 at 5:51 am
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost more than 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot - and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life…
And that is why I succeed. ”
Michael Jordan
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:57 am
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