The Art of Failure
When I’m asked to introduce myself, I often start by saying:
“Hi, I’m Udo, and I’m a serial failure”.
It’s a nice icebreaker, but I am not lying or trying to make a shocking statement. It’s the truth.
In this article, I want to challenge how we look at and treat failure and how this can result in an inability to assess constructive acts.
The staging of failure
We all have an issue with how we cognitively perceive failing. Society struggles with whether failure is needed, good or bad.
In the modern academic & business world, we hold aloft statements celebrating failure as an integral part of success.
“Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.” ― Oprah Winfrey.
“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.” ―?John F. Kennedy.
“Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” ―?Nelson Mandela.
We tend to hold these short phrases aloft yet rarely give a moment to the conundrum they raise. Then there are the teachings that tell us how?not?to fail:
“Insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.” — Albert Einstein (although possibly a?misquote)
I hear management icons and social commentators often spout variations of the above quote almost monthly.
The quotes highlight a common underlying trait. They all propose that failure is unwanted rather than a necessity.
The term “failure” carries a final, negative connotation that we need to re-examine. Unsurprisingly, a synonym lookup exposes words with comparable intents.
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What is the consequence?
Our society perpetuates the myth that failures indicate a negative state to be assessed. We associate it with shame and when applied to oneself, as a personal shortcoming. Without thought or coaching, it is challenging to overcome our emotional biases when assessing the value of failures. The mental management needed to combat one’s failure often gets in the way of?evaluating the outcome.
It is particularly prevalent in management when assessing a person’s or group’s success. During assessments, we devalue achievements by offsetting them against failures. Often a “failure” carry a disproportionate negative rating compared to an equivalent success. I’ll have a deep dive into this topic in a later article.
Changing our perspective
In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” The 10,000-hour rule suggests it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in a given field. For an average person, this is anything between seven to nineteen years of practice**.
The term “practice” can have multiple meanings depending on the context. Here are a few common definitions:
Noun:?Practice refers to the act of repeatedly doing something in order to improve or acquire proficiency in a skill or activity. It involves a consistent and deliberate effort to develop competence.
Verb:?Practice means to engage in a specific activity, often with the intention of improving or refining one’s abilities. It implies the repetition of an action or the application of knowledge or skills.
Practising doesn’t have the negative connotations that failure does. Its synonyms are positively reinforcing:
So practice requires you to:
Continuously do something until you acquire expertise.
Consider this. What we are implicitly stating is that practice requires you to:
Continuously fail until you acquire expertise.
They are equivalents when considered as part of a process.
Becoming an expert requires practice, and practice involves repeating something. The key component is you?learn more after each repetition. The repetitions can be identical as long as you are learning from them. It is the applied learnings that eventually make you an expert. It is why the quote “Insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result” erks me so much. It communicates the wrong signals.
Cultivating a growth mindset around failing
Rather than viewing failure as something to avoid, we should reframe it as practising to achieve accelerated learning. When approached proactively, failing gives us vital insights to build upon. Setbacks provide guideposts showing us where we need to improve. Each stumble contains a lesson if examined constructively.
Cultivating this growth mindset around failure requires rejecting the negative associations of the word itself. Instead, view these moments as:
With this constructive language, we stop equating failure with a lack of self-worth. We recognise it as feedback to build upon, not an indictment of our abilities.
Implementing this reframing also requires concrete strategies. When you experience a setback:
With the right mindset and strategies, moments we view as failures become our most valuable teachers. They push us to grow. The art of failing well is challenging ourselves to reframe failure as the price of entry for success — not something to avoid, but an inevitable experience to leverage which is vital to the goal itself.
** Consider you spent every day on this task. Each day is 8 hours. 10K is ~3.4 years. We know that’s only practical for some, so say you spend four hours on your craft daily. It will then take almost seven years. A person who allocates around 10 hours per week towards their craft requires approximately 19 years to become an expert.
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1 年Interesting perspective on failure; I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to share about this topic!