Learnings from Failure

As the school year is about to start in the UK. I’ve been thinking about the fact that we never really stop learning;

?When we’re younger, learning is celebrated and as children we’re encouraged to ‘try’ and if we fail then we’re praised because at least we tried. However, as we age, failure (or not succeeding on first time) is seen as a negative.

Creating new digital health solutions brings a lot of unknowns, driving innovation is difficult, sometimes things do not work to plan or are harder than initially expected. We should be taking these moment and acknowledge all of our steps, including the not yet (or failures), either as a team or personal, and use them as opportunities to learn, grow and do better.

By being able to recognize when we could have done better, or recognizing when we can try alternative ideas or ways of working we should reflect on these new pieces of knowledge as they are helping us advance in our mission to revolutionize healthcare for patients.

A book that was recommended to me a few years ago encourages us to think about the fixed vs growth mindset which focuses on what you can control and provides you with the power to take learnings from failure. The fixed vs growth framework is also known as a reappraisal strategy because it reinforces that you’re able to adjust your thoughts away from the challenge to reinterpret the situation and see the control you are able to have over the situation and control your emotions. Instead of seeing failure as a negative and being disappointed, we’re able to see it as a learning and something to help us grow.

If we switch to the ‘growth’ mindset, failure can have a lot of positives and it can teach us things about ourselves and provide ways to continually learn and grow.

Throughout my career there have been many times when I have had to become more flexible, adapt to new requests and ways of working or learn how to overcome new obstacles and they have all provided me with new insights that have enabled me to try again, sometimes several times, to ultimately succeed.

I recently gave my team the task to think about areas where they are struggling, and rather than feeling bad about it, review what creative opportunities we have to learn. I encouraged them to try something new or try a different path, and for those that are really stuck, encouraged them to ask for help to find a new path.

Some of the questions I put to the team to enable them to better understand how their emotion was impacting their work -? How did it make you feel? What did you learn from it? How did you turn that struggle or failure around? Learning from these setbacks ensures that we all become better colleagues and individuals and make sure you put your energy on the comeback.

We should all be embracing the lessons learned from not yet (failure) and use the learnings to keep going. Leading from within, means exactly that, always looking at what you could have done better and leading with a better version of yourself.

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