Failure and Learning

Offers five traits of bad decisions and how to avoid replicating them. 

Reason #4 is probably most common in nonprofit sector ....

4) Haven’t been properly vetted – they don’t factor in well enough the potential impact and outcomes

One necessary ingredient to great decisions is that you’ve gathered all the necessary information from the most diverse and inclusive perspectives possible, and evaluated each alternative scenario before you choose one option. Many terrible decisions come from an incomplete decision-making process that failed to involve the necessary brainstorming phase or a thorough enough evaluation of all the potential consequences of each alternative.

Lesson: Develop sufficient boundaries so that you’re not being overly reactive, emotional or analytical in your decision making. Use an integrative style that incorporates as much feedback and data possible, and allows you to brainstorm all possible solutions, and vet them in an effective, integrative way.

Curated by Beth Kanter

http://www.bethkanter.org

There's a lot of writing about failure, different sectors, and different methods for failing and learning.   This article is for those who have been successful, so successful that no one questions them.   That means it is time to fail.

Instead fail at something outside your business. Set a reach goal you know you can't reach. If you normally run three miles in 21 minutes, try to run five miles in 35 minutes. Play a sport and compete with people who are a lot better than you. Try to do your high school kid's homework. If you aren't willing to step outside your business, just go help an employee do her job for a few hours and try to keep up: I guarantee she'll outperform you.

Just make sure to give whatever you pick your all. Do your absolute best. Leave no room for excuses. The goal is to fail... but not for lack of trying.

And that's a good thing. Failure isn't defeating; failure is motivating. Failure doesn't just motivate me to improve a skill. Failure also provides a healthy and instant dose of perspective. Failure makes me more tolerant and patient of other people who struggle or fail.

Start paying less attention to your own innovation speed limits and more attention to your customers'.

This "too fast/too slow" leadership conundrum reeks of "Goldilocks" management — transformations and turnarounds should be neither too fast nor too slow; they must be "just right." That's a mug's game. When "reckless" moves succeed, they're retrospectively rebranded as "bold." When "timidity" triumphs, it's celebrated as "patient" and "safe." Failure simply means leadership went too fast or didn't go fast enough. That's rationalization, not insight.

The issue is less about how fast CEOs are willing to move than how quickly their most reliable customers are prepared to change. The most effective and important diagnostic I've observed for assessing organizational speed and tempo appears obvious but underappreciated: How fast are your customers willing to change? Your own rate of change is determined less by the quality or price/performance of your offerings than the measurable readiness of your customers and clients. Their internal readiness matters more than yours. Their inertia matters more than your momentum.

"Aim don't blame"

In Failure Club, members learn to defy the fears associated with ‘failure’ by pursuing seemingly impossible goals that they set for themselves. From the outset, failure is not only a highly probable outcome, it is the desired outcome. Only through embracing the reality of failure can its’ societal stigmas be stripped away and replaced with an inspirational alternative.

Curated by Beth Kanter

http://www.bethkanter.org

Summarizes research report about how you need to frame mistakes and failure in your own head to get past the shame:

What's the best course of action following a screwup? Forget beating yourself up, and instead be nice--to yourself.

The study's conclusion for students--"forgive yourself for you have procrastinated, move on, get over it and you'll be more likely to get going without delay next time around"--is probably equally applicable to entrepreneurs.

Article on INC: http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-to-bounce-back-from-a-mistake.html

Study Referenced:   http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/09/the-surprising-motivational-power-of-self-compassion.php

Curated by Beth Kanter
http://www.bethkanter.org

Author: 

Michael Tefula This is a guest post by a fellow young high-achiever, Michael Tefula. Michael is a recent graduate from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

This piece caught my attention because of the headline.  I thought it might be a clearly articulated argument on the downside of "failure."  He is saying that the "failure" movement is overhyped - and that not everyone who fails goes onto great success.    I don't agree with a lot of what he saying, but wanted to better understand those who feel failiure is a good way to learn.

Let us not take failure lightly. Instead, let us succeed as fast as we can – if we’re ever truly going to make it.

Failure is an over-glorified pain to be avoided. (Especially if behavioral economics tells us people respond nearly twice as strongly to losses as they do to gains!) Sure, we can and should learn a lot from it. Failure, if taken rightly, can be used as a positive force in our lives — but we should also try to minimize its impact and learn how to avoid it in the first place, instead of just correcting our failures and learning from them once they have already happened.

As a result, here are three key pointers that have helped me brace for — and ultimately avoid failure. Perhaps they can be of use to you too.

Test the waters before taking the plunge.

Do you really have what it takes? Have independent third parties corroborated your confidence for success? Make sure you can crawl before trying to walk.

Fail quietly, privately, and in isolation.
What better way to fail and learn than in an environment where it doesn’t really matter?

This is a new initiative - site and report from the Case Foundation that is promoting social innovation encouraging those in the sector to take risks, be bold, and fail forward. 

Read the report, take the pledge.

Curated by Beth Kanter

http://www.bethkanter.org

Fostering an organizational culture that foster innovation means embracing risk and failure.  This article offers three ideas    

One focuses on encouraging a team or organizational culture to feel comfortable with failure:

The key is to balance performance and learning. Employees must feel like they can try new things and fail in the short term without being punished in the medium to long term. The message should be that risk and failure is acceptable - as long as the loss is monitored and there is learning. A positive side effect is that employees will feel like they have your organization's support, which will help innovation continue to prosper.