The Discipline of Failure

Hi everyone. After nearly a year of writing the weekly newsletter Leading Matters on Substack , I've decided to add a new weekly summary of the article on LinkedIn.

We've all heard the startup mantra about "jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down." Which might be the worst analogy of all time…

True innovation doesn't come from glorifying failure as a badge of honor. Instead, it emerges from approaching failure with discipline, intention, and methodology. The most successful organizations don't just stumble upon occasional insights from random failures—they systematically extract value from setbacks through deliberate practices.

Here are the five core elements of what I call "the discipline of failure":

1. Systematic Learning

Organizations like Amazon don't leave insights to chance. Their "correction of errors" process creates comprehensive post-mortems that analyze what went wrong and prevent similar issues—all under a blame-free culture that encourages deeper thinking.

2. Controlled Experimentation

Google X's "rapid invalidation" approach identifies the riskiest assumptions in moonshot ideas and designs targeted experiments to test those assumptions quickly and cheaply. This allows them to kill weak ideas early before significant resources are invested.

3. Psychological Rigor

Netflix's culture of "sunshine" brings failures into the open rather than hiding them. Leaders model vulnerability by explicitly sharing what went wrong, why it happened, and what they learned—separating personal identity from project outcomes.

4. Intentional Integration

Toyota's Kaizen process systematically transforms failure into valuable data for improvement. Their "5 Whys" technique digs beneath surface-level symptoms to uncover underlying causes, creating a virtuous cycle where each small problem becomes an opportunity to strengthen the entire system.

5. Cultural Cultivation

Pixar's "Braintrust" normalizes constructive criticism and course correction. By providing candid feedback in a psychologically safe environment, they catch and address storytelling failures early when changes are less costly.

The discipline of failure doesn't eliminate risk—it manages it. It doesn't prevent all failures—it anticipates them and makes them count.

What steps is your organization taking to transform the way you're approaching failure to create a valuable asset?

For a deeper dive into these principles and how to implement them in your organization, including a set of questions for you and your team, check out my full article on Substack.

https://leadingmatters.substack.com/p/the-discipline-of-failure

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