FAILURE!

FAILURE! We avoid failure. We don't like to talk about it, we don't like to admit failure. There are many reasons why, much comes from our evolutionary neurobiological wiring, that has enabled us to hone our skills to survive, build shelters and successfully hunt.

Our socialisation also plays a part, we deeply wish to belong and failure may tap into our fear of risking our place in the tribe.

I noticed this week how much I wanted to "correct" my 11 year old daughter as she iced the new year cake (we didn't get round to icing it before Christmas), I started to tell her to cut the cherries, put on more nuts and could see this beginning to stifle her ideas and creativity as she looked to me for guidance as the parent and I instructed her from a place of wanting 'perfection', perhaps a place of fear , even though it is simply a cake we are going to eat.

The "stakes" (risks) in this activity are really low and yet deep in me was something wanting to 'perfect’ and protect her, and me from a ‘mistake’. I noticed this and was able to pause myself and allow her to find her own way, what she has produced is lovely, it isn’t the way I would have decorated the cake, but then how can she tap into her own creativity and find confidence in the world if I don’t let her try things out, experiment and make mistakes? In another school holiday activity this week, she was trying to make a clay candle holder (makes me sound like the wholesome parent, it was a Christmas gift thanks @martinmellor and @alice winder), the frustration she felt to ‘get it right’, reminded me again of the importance of willingness to fail in our learning and in our way in the world, and how perhaps as parents and leaders we may inadvertently create more anxiety about mistake making, especially when the ‘stakes are low’ as Amy Edmonson describes.

Amy Edmonson says that we often “erroneously think the stakes are too high” classifing all mistakes with the same risk profile.

and this is what holds us back from experimenting. We believe the consequences will be catastrophic, when in fact they are merely disappointing or mildly inconvenient. Making what she calls “intelligent failures”, help us in the pursuit of new knowledge, discovery and accomplishment.

Steven Bartlett says “if you want to increase your chances of success, you must increase your failure rate” in his book ‘The Diary of a CEO’ (Law 21 “you must out-fail the competition”).

Amy Edmonsons video is great. “It doesn’t matter if you fail. It matters *how* you fail” .