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Whack. My hand slapped my forehead as I sighed. My administrative assistant walked in, seeing me hovered over my desk, elbows and arms firmly planted in a triangle. What she witnessed was the aftermath of me realizing I made a mistake.
We can be our toughest critics when we make a mistake. I am completely guilty of this.
Alexander Pope had it right in his classic An Essay on Criticism when he stated, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” But when we err, it can wreak havoc on our psyches, confidence, and health.
Organizations that embrace growth mindset are more likely to have empowered and committed employees willing to collaborate and innovate despite the possibility of failure.
The shift that some need to make is to understand that mistakes and failures are part of the learning process. If we are always perfect at everything, we probably aren’t challenging ourselves and taking risks that can lead to exponential growth.
In this week’s post, we’ll explore some research that contextualizes the role of failure in learning and innovation. Then, I’ll offer some ways you can manage the inevitable setbacks we all experience. These setbacks are when we can allow ourselves to be either vulnerable and grow or fall into paralysis - fearing to take risks.
What’s Failure Got to Do With It?
Based on the research, failure has got a lot to do with learning and innovation.
Considering Carol Dweck’s growth mindset theory, an individual’s mindset can profoundly influence self-perception (Ehrlinger et al., 2016), learning goals (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2017; Lou & Noels, 2017), willingness to accept a new challenge (Dweck, 2007), and responses to setbacks or criticisms (Forsythe & Johnson, 2017).
If individuals become insecure or defensive when they get a poor result or fail, then growth is stunted. This is what Dweck calls a fixed mindset. A work environment filled with a bunch of fixed minseters can be the death knell of innovation and learning (Dweck, 2016).
Those fixed mindseters also view learning as a competition or a way to prove their talent and/or intelligence. Those who are growth-oriented are less likely to be concerned about “looking smart” and put more energy into actually learning and growing. The fear of failure dissolves (Dweck, 2016).
Organizations that embrace growth mindset are more likely to have empowered and committed employees willing to collaborate and innovate despite the possibility of failure. In contrast, employees at fixed mindset organizations are more likely to deceive and cheat to gain an advantage (Dweck, 2016).
Additionally, organizational learning occurs when an organization supports radical or innovative initiatives. Interestingly, initiative failure leads to an individual’s desire to repeat initiative taking (Deichmann & van den Ende, 2014). So encourage people to take calculated risks!
Desired results improve when individuals have more experiences (Levitt & March 1988; Wright 1936). However, these experiences can not occur without a willingness to keep trying and being open to failure.
Now, according to an HBR article, not all failures are “good failures.” Mistakes can be placed into three buckets – preventable, complexity-related, and intelligent. The failures in the “preventable” category are generally viewed as “bad” and avoidable. A failure in this category might involve someone completely deviating from protocol and “winging it.” The plan and failure are not thought out.
Complexity-related failures occur when multiple factors occur over time or concurrently (a classroom can fall in this category as well as a nuclear plant – same thing, right? 🙂).
Finally, intelligent failures are those perceived as “good” mainly because they give new knowledge that can lead to improvement and growth. Trial and error of different ideas will perpetuate further innovation.
View your failure as not a judgment on you or your value. See it for what it is… a mistake.
Considering these studies, remember:
When you make a mistake, don’t take it personally or internalize it. Instead, pick yourself back up and charge ahead.
While you can learn from your failures, growth mindset theory does not give you carte blanche to just recklessly make decisions. Be thoughtful in your intent.
Organizations that promote a growth mindset tend to inspire innovation and growth.
The 6 Steps of Failing Forward
Every time something doesn’t go to plan, I try to remember the six steps below. They help make any setback or failure easier to swallow and learn from. So, next time things don’t go to plan, make sure you do the following:
1. Admit your failure
Besides forgiving yourself you need to admit that you made a mistake. Owning up to mistakes can be hard, especially when that mistake was avoidable, one of those “bad” failures that HBR mentions.
Admitting a failure can be difficult, especially when the culture in which you work expects perfection. Or maybe you expect perfection. Both are not good and will stunt growth and development not to mention your mental health.
Admitting that you made a mistake puts you in a vulnerable position. You’re exposed and it’s no big surprise…. Admitting the failure will help you with the next step which is to forgive yourself.
2. Forgive yourself
Thinking back to that Alexander Pope quote, you must also learn to forgive. If you are the one making the misstep, you need to forgive yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. You are only human. The only time you should ever be disappointed is if you do not do something about or learn something from your failure.
It is easier to forgive yourself when you work in an environment that accepts mistakes and does not demonize missteps. But regardless of the external factors, offer yourself grace and understanding when things don’t go to plan.
3. Adopt a growth mindset
If you’ve admitted your failure and you’ve forgiven yourself, then taking on a growth mindset should be a bit easier. View your failure as not a judgment on you or your value. See it for what it is… a mistake. Whether it is a big one or a little one, it is a chance to learn and grow.
Your value as a human being isn’t contingent upon you being perfect and never making mistakes. Accept that you must make mistakes to learn and grow. You must constantly be challenging yourself and pushing yourself to new heights. Sometimes, you will fall.
The thing you need to do is to pick yourself back up and keep going.
Make sure you love yourself and surround yourself with individuals who will positively influence your growth mindset and encourage and challenge you to reach new heights.
4. Rectify the failure
But before you keep going and charging into the great beyond, see if you can rectify the failure. Can you do something to remedy the mistake? Do you need to call in some support? Sometimes fixing the misstep will require you to reach out to others to brainstorm ways you can resolve whatever went wrong.
5. Reflect & learn
After you try to fix the issue, you want to reflect on the situation. Determine what went awry. This part is also best done in collaboration with someone who will provide you with honest feedback and challenge your thinking.
I recommend a trusted loved one or colleague. Lean into these individuals as they will be the ones to call you out when you’ve overstepped and challenge you to do and be better.
6. Make a change
When you’ve reflected and learned from the failure, then you need to make a change. So whether that is trying out something new or altering the way you approach similar situations, you need to take the experience and make it worthwhile. Don’t let the failure just sit without actually doing something, then it will be all for naught.
One Last Thought
While these steps might seem easy to follow, if you have experienced trauma in the past, it can be difficult to just see failure as something separate from yourself. One of my challenges is disconnecting failure from my self-worth. This goes far back into my childhood and has been something I work on. But it is difficult when your brain seems hardwired to think and be a certain way.
You have to recode your brain and mindset so that you can not only learn and grow from your mistakes but accept them and not judge yourself.
Regardless of the mistake… small…. medium… or extra large…. Make sure you love yourself and surround yourself with individuals who will positively influence your growth mindset and encourage and challenge you to reach new heights.
References
An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope. (n.d.). An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope | Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69379/an-essay-on-criticism
Deichmann, D., & van den Ende, J. (2014). Rising from Failure and Learning from Success: The Role of Past Experience in Radical Initiative Taking. Organization Science (Providence, R.I.), 25(3), 670–690. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2013.0870
Dweck, C. (2023, April 6). What having a “Growth mindset” actually means. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means
Dweck, C. S. (2007). The perils and promises of praise (Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 34-39). Ascd.
Edmondson, A. C. (2022, November 7). Strategies for Learning from Failure. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure
Ehrlinger, J., Mitchum, A. L., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Understanding overconfidence: Theories of intelligence, preferential attention, and distorted self-assessment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 63, 94-100.
Forsythe, A., & Johnson, S. (2017). Thanks, but no-thanks for the feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(6), 850-859.
Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2017). The origins of children's growth and fixed mindsets: New research and a new proposal. Child development, 88(6), 1849-1859.
Levitt, B., & March, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual review of sociology, 14(1), 319-338.
Lou, N. M., & Noels, K. A. (2017). Measuring language mindsets and modeling their relations with goal orientations and emotional and behavioral responses in failure situations. The Modern Language Journal, 101(1), 214-243.
Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the aeronautical sciences, 3(4), 122-128.
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