Failure Tolerance and Success Definitions
School is an interesting thing. In university and college there were deadlines. Deadlines are important, they are the fences that constrain so we can boost our creativity. We need them to keep projects from lasting forever or failing from lack of budget. We respect them, see them as challenges, and bind ourselves legally to them in the business world. They have a purpose and a meaning, and form a solid part of our education.
Sometimes they must be permeable. Why? Because sometimes the learning objective is more important than the boundary. Some boundaries are there for a purpose. Businesses have quarters, schools have semesters, launch dates are often dependant of multiple co-ordinated vendors. Within those boundaries though, we should allow for more effort and chances of failure.
Within the business realm of software as a service, I faced a conundrum. Our product was lacking in some areas but, our budget was constrained to a mere 2 developers. Our practical work was high enough that there was never time to embrace improvement.
Improvement, like all ventures involves exploration and the chance of introducing error. It's a gamble. If you lose, you have bugs, a potential rollback and maybe a missed deadline. Ouch! It would be easy to stop there. Don't jeopardize the business model. Be safe. Safety is temporary. Safety is a walled garden with an approaching hurricane. Safety is a road to stagnation.
Our other option is to fund and embrace risk. We know about what happens if you lose the bet. What happens if you win? Winning involves learning from your losses, experimenting, and using what you learn to develop better knowledge. Winning in software as a service can be embracing automation to serve more customers. Winning isn't always immediate returns. Winning is a process of embracing "what if", and owning the consequences.
Within education we must also embrace failure. Deadlines should have a degree of permeability. Why? A significant number of your students want the skills they learn to come with minimal effort. Sadly, life is not always going to be like this. Failure comes with a degree of shame, and the discomfort that comes with can sap students of the will to continue.
How can we help them? It's upon us as coaches and educators to weigh the learning outcomes against the deadlines. When each lesson builds on the next, your coaching and attention becomes the equivalent of your budget. Failing marks are not going to motivate. Feedback and coaching can overcome the toxicity of perfectionism. Perfect isn't the aim, understanding is. Whether you are dealing with coworkers, a team you are leading, or a class of students the challenge is the same. Find ways to turn moments of fail into moments of coaching and improvement.
Whether your budget is money or time, how you spend that budget matters. You can attempt to be safe, stagnant, and cull where you see failure. You'll stay afloat for a while but, lose out on the potential of those around you. The harder option, is to accept the risk in coaxing learning from failure. The returns, while harder fought come with a brighter future.