Failure is a Better Teacher

People who know me, and those who have read previous posts, know that I am a positive person focused on success. I believe that while in mechanical systems it is normal to ask “negative” questions to diagnose why something broke or failed and find a solution. For example:

Q- Why did the product get returned?

A- Because the connector came loose.

Q- Why did the connector come loose?

And the process goes on until the root cause is found and fixed. In human systems if you come across a problem or failure and if the focus goes down the similar track as in mechanical systems, I have seen evidence that a solution is not found. To the contrary, I have seen the negative spiral just exacerbate the problem. To solve challenges in human systems I have found success with Appreciative Inquiry. So why did I title this post “Failure is a Better Teacher”?

The world is focused on success, especially America. Success in academics. Success in sports. Success in Business. We benchmark success and try to copycat others’ successful strategies whether personal or company successes. Many books have been written on success. Many people have gotten rich from writing books on how to attain success. Look at one book for example. “In Search of Excellence” was a very successful book on successful companies and what they did to be successful. The problem is that these companies haven’t stayed at the top of their game. Sometimes focusing on success alone can be a mistake. What happens if you never look at your failures? Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln to name two “successes” also had many failures before their success. Walt Disney is another famous person who encountered many failures before realizing his dream.

So it is important to learn from failure. Don’t let it stop you. Keep moving forward.

The problem with studying failure is that it typically precedes the assignment of blame rather than an opportunity for improvement. Then the defenses go up and communication shuts down. Take football as an example. Coaches and players watch hours of game film studying what was done wrong so they can see where they need to improve or where the weaknesses of an opposing team are. We should not fear failure. We should embrace it, acknowledge it and learn from it. Many times in life it takes major setbacks to shake us to change. When we are successful, we are fat, dumb and happy.

So, the trick is to study failures in an objective manner without assigning blame and learn from it and work to remove it.