Our Big Fail on Failure

Brandon Busteed

CEO of BrandEd | Author | Keynote Speaker | LinkedIn Top Voice | Views are my own

发布日期: 2023年7月8日

This week I got to thinking about the topic of 'failure' thanks to a reflective week spent at my alma mater. I took my son to the Jon Scheyer Duke Basketball Camp (a day camp) and worked from a local hotel while he was at camp during the day. During the evenings, he joined me each night for dinners with mentors of mine, various faculty, administrators and others. And it turned out to be an unexpected celebration of the many definitions of a "come back." We all love a good comeback story in life and sports. But do we really seek, appreciate, and celebrate them enough in school and at work? And when people fail, are we more apt to criticize them or join them in the journey of learning from the experience?

The definitions of a 'comeback' are varied: to return to life or vitality; to return to a memory or place; to regain a former favorable condition; to recover from a deficit in a contest or competition. I experienced all these last week - returning to my alma mater, returning to many memories, and to what I'll call 'my intellectual home.'

During one of my dinner conversations, the topic of 'the most defining moments in a student's experience' came up. I shared mine. And it was a crushing failure that somehow, someway turned into a comeback story. I'm sharing it here - and the headline of the article says it all. "Formerly reviled...". Do you know how bad reviled is? Definition: "To be criticized in an angrily insulting manner." Well, that was me in my junior year as Class President. I took a risk. And in student-leader terms - it was near-fatal.

Looking back on this, it seems ridiculous. And, truth be told, it was ridiculous when it happened too. To say I touched a nerve is an understatement. At the time, there were editorials written in the Duke student newspaper (including one by a friend of mine who studied abroad with me entitled "Burn The Foam") berating me for suggesting an alternative. The night of the event, someone kicked in the driver's side door of my car and another student left a drunken death threat on my answering machine (yes, I had one of those in 1998). Looking back on it, what I experienced was an expression of cowardice to courage. It's really easy to criticize others and jump on their mistakes. It's a whole other thing to try to come up with a solution, especially amidst controversial or contentious issues.

We have created a culture of criticizing failure. And it has come at the cost of calculated risks, innovation, and - most of all - learning, growth and development. I worry that we are overly protecting our children from failure, that we don't value failure enough as a learning tool in school and at work, and that we see it as confidence-crushing instead of confidence-building. I don't wish failure on anyone, but I also wouldn't trade my failures for anything in the world. I learned more from a failed foam party than anything else in the classroom at Duke.

How do we build new cultural muscles around embracing learning from failure? I'm a huge fan of project-based learning, team-based curricula, and work-integrated learning in schools. I also try to encourage my team to take risks and push into bold and innovative dimensions. We just don't do enough of this. And as a result, we aren't comfortable with it. If we practice it more, it starts to feel easier. When it feels easier, it is easier.

Right now, we make it far too easy to criticize others. What if it became easy to learn from failure? What would that world look like?

Jason Melton

1 年

Brandon, terrific as always. I talked with a publisher recently about writing a book called “Everything is an experiment” so I’m with you. IMO, this is one of the biggest disconnects between higher ed and the world of work. From grades 2 through post grad we teach learners a scientific method. That method makes failure and learning part of the process. Then people enter the workforce and there is almost no talk of experimentation and learning. Every manager just wants an answer or solution. If you fail, you’re likely fired. And if not fired, definitely looked down upon. In my work for the last 2-3 years I have been embracing “what are we going to try?” That facilitates opportunities for more/ all voices to be heard. It also creates a shared responsibility for success and diffusion of the friction of failure and learning. Imagine if we implemented programs where people said “here is what we’re going to try. We’ll report out the results and make changes based on what’s working and whats not”. When I zoom out, I see that in the world to a degree, but took often, like your classmates, people think a change is being forced on them. They don’t hear “here is what we’re TRYING. Just “here is what’s being done. Period.”

2 次回应

Jennifer Roski

Business Development | Operations & Investment Management | Driving Profitable Growth

1 年

This is a great piece and touches on a crucial element in today's world where we work in such fast paced environments. You mentioned a key point about creating a culture of encouragement to take risks which leads to innovation. If failure is criticized and the blame game is heavily enforced, one will become more apt to play it safe or even in some cases make more mistakes because their environment is not safe to admit mistakes or failures.

3 次回应

Mike Sachleben

Leader. Planner. Builder.

1 年

Even with the mantra "fail fast" drummed into technical entrepreneur's heads, there is still a failure stigma. Perhaps the start of the cultural change could be angel investors seeing people involved with failed startups as being MORE worthy of early funding than those with successful exits. If our kids could see object examples of the benefits of learning from failure (like getting easier money next time around) then maybe they'd be more willing to try more new things.