Two-time Olympic bronze medalist (judo) Ori Sasson knows a thing or two about failure. Going into the 2018 European championship, Sasson was the incoming Olympic bronze medalist and favored for the gold. But things didn’t turn out as planned. He didn’t win and ultimately let down the crowd, his sponsors, and himself. The press had a field day, claiming his athletic career was over. He was crushed. But if there is one thing elite athletes do exceptionally well, it is learn from what went wrong, dust themselves off, and try again.
In the dynamic landscape of professional success, failure is an inevitable and often misunderstood companion. Everyone, from Olympians to CEOs, grapple with the stigma surrounding setbacks and disappointments in their careers. Yet, precisely, these moments of defeat have the potential to be the catalysts for unparalleled growth and achievement. As the world’s #1 management thinker, Harvard Business School’s Dr. Amy Edmondson teaches us in her new book, Right Kind of Wrong, that not all failures are equal.
In the simplest of terms, there is good and bad failure, where the bad is preventable and the good has a valuable lesson that can be gleaned from the experience. Edmondson does a remarkable job at pulling back the layers of failure and breaking it down into three types of failures: 1) Basic, 2) Complex, and 3) Intelligent.
Basic failures
In basic failures, the knowledge already exists about achieving a desired result. It’s when we don’t use that available knowledge that failure occurs. Think of all our safety precautions, from seat belts to keeping hallways clear. They are usually solvable problems with single causes. Basic failures are caused by mistakes. They are unproductive and a waste of time, energy, and resources. They are also preventable.
According to Edmondson, failure cannot and should not be indiscriminate, as the popular quote “fail early and often” suggests.
Complex failures
Complex failures have more moving parts, which people interact with unpredictably. Healthcare and aerospace are two perfect examples. The failures happen in familiar settings and often have subtle warning signs. There is usually one uncontrollable factor that throws everything into disarray.
Intelligent failures
Intelligent failures are a blessing, or as Edmondson calls them, a “right kind of wrong.” There are four attributes to such failures: 1) They occur in a new territory; 2) The context presents a credible opportunity to advance toward a desire goal; 3) It’s informed by available knowledge; and 4) Failure is as small as it can be to still provide valuable insights.
Scientists, inventors, chefs, and innovators fail intelligently. They are curious and constantly experimenting. But every error is a lesson that leads to new information. Intelligent failures marinate slowly and don’t announce themselves. To push yourself to reflect on a failure, ask yourself what you’d hoped would happen, what occurred instead, and how you would explain the difference.
But beware, “An intelligent failure is not intelligent the second time around,” warns Edmondson.
Not all failures are preventable. “The greater the uncertainty, the lower the preventability,” says Edmondson.
So why are we so afraid to fail? You likely think that a failure means you did something wrong and that blame is to be bestowed. That may be the case if it is a basic failure, but some failure, Edmondson claims, is truly praiseworthy.
Setbacks and missteps are not the road’s end but stepping stones to success. Failure is not a destination but a temporary setback on the journey toward personal and professional development. By learning from our mistakes, embracing failure as a teacher, and persisting in the face of adversity, we can harness its transformative power and ultimately achieve our goals and dreams. Ori Sasson, who opened this article, took many lessons from his failure and used them to redefine everything from his workouts to his sleep regimen. He returned to the same competition in front of the same crowd one year later and won gold.
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