Safe to Fail is Safe to Learn and Grow

As we said yesterday, we think one of the big pieces in Psychological Safety and its existence -or lack thereof- after the “Pandemic Pivot Point” is the connection between failure and learning. 

In this video, we touch on some of the theory behind it as well as some practical ideas from the big organisational mindset changes needed all the way down to the suggestion to reinforce permission by the simple act of sending your employees to the “FuckUpNights”.

https://youtu.be/NN6Ez0W1ipU

If we stop to consider what learning has meant over the past few tens of years we discover a rather fixed mindset. One was expected to enter their job with a certain amount of knowledge where it had been acquired academically or though experience and then apply that. At most they would receive some occasional courses or training - hence the term of “upskilling” but the overall attitude to learning had it down as more of an afterthought that was a nuisance or imposition upon our other “priorities” and todos. This worked well while that amount of knowledge was sufficient but in today’s VUCA world characterised by speed new information, new methodologies and technologies emerge every day and learning has to become part of the very DNA of the organisation so they can compete. 

Curiosity, openness and a voracious appetite for learning can not be mandated, just ask any Learning and Development professional, instead, to be effective, they have to become an internal imperative for each and every one of us that stems from learning being the only way to make things happen. An example of that is how agile causes a need for continuous learning as it has a cycle of improvement and exploration inbuilt in its principles. We at PeopleNotTech are so intensely agile we celebrate lessons and mistakes on a regular basis and while not everyone has our freedom to experiment and change, reframing around a new attitude to failure is crucial to everyone.

Learning from failure is the only way to be innovative and grow. Organisations that have not learned the importance of celebrating it are amassing more and more HumanDebt by the day.

With that said, the risks around this new mindset are not as great as they are perceived by some if we are forensic about what learning entails. In a sense, there’s “good failure” and “bad failure”.

In Prof Dr. Amy Edmondson’s book “Teaming” you can find concepts suggesting there is a “learning spectrum” ranging from the freedom and mandate of the lab-like high innovation learning environments, purpose-built for innovation and creation, with high levels of empowerment and safety all the way down to the opposite end where it is terrifying to make mistakes in poor leadership and toxic team environments -which ironically increases the likelihood of the wrong kind of failure- all the way to where in different industries the process is rigid and the improvements are minute. 

The desirable middle of the spectrum where there is enough in the way of permission, support and encouragement in safe spaces inside teams that are high performing, is achievable to every organisation in any industry. 

At an organisational level, those companies that have rebuilt around learning - be it the amazing Novartis celebration of curiosity, the Google experimentation mandate or the many companies that have the Target DoJo model in place- are best positioned to grow because they implicitly have a higher degree of Psychological Safety that comes from the knowledge that it is safe to fail and it is safe to be open. Not only safe but encouraged. 

In terms of hands-on advice on what to do at a team level to affirm or reaffirm -or even substitute- organisational permission, if you’re a client reading this then the best places to find some in the Playbook is in advice around Speaking Up, in the “Courage Hackathon” and especially in the play called “Learning Focus Huddle” which has many practical suggestions of how to reaffirm the permission to learn and reframe around good failure. 

We hope you find ways to make your people feel safe to learn, and safe to share what they've been learning so that they grow.

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Don't send your teams home with a laptop, a Jira and Slack account and a prayer!

Read more about our Team Dashboard that measures and improves Psychological Safety at www.peoplenottech.com or reach out at [email protected] and let's help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.