The Value of Failure

One of our nat­ur­al instincts is to avoid mis­takes and pain. It’s deeply wired into our DNA and what our ances­tors required in order to survive.

In the world we live in today, while there are still real­ly dan­ger­ous things that can deeply hurt us, we can get too wor­ried about try­ing to avoid mis­takes. As a result, we slow our­selves down and lim­it our learn­ing experiences.

Becom­ing mas­ter­ful and com­pe­tent in our careers often means learn­ing how to avoid mak­ing the same mis­takes. But, as we train the next gen­er­a­tion of tech­ni­cians and lead­ers, we often for­get about the val­ue of fail­ure and the learn­ing it can offer us.

We want to have them to have a bet­ter and eas­i­er growth path by help­ing them to avoid mak­ing mis­takes, in the first place. Some­times, we cre­ate just the oppo­site — which I talk about in this recent blog — slow­ing their learn­ing and mak­ing them more risk adverse.

In fact, as lead­ers and par­ents, our job is to help the next gen­er­a­tion find ways to expe­ri­ence and learn from mis­takes — and to under­stand the val­ue of failure.

I love the sto­ry in this recent arti­cle about a teacher who gives each stu­dent a bag of 1,000 beads. Each time they make a mis­take, they take out one bead and achieve mas­tery only when the bag is emp­ty. The faster they make mis­takes, the faster they progress.

Mak­ing a mis­take becomes an achieve­ment to celebrate.

Hope­ful­ly, by accel­er­at­ing the pace at which peo­ple make many lit­tle mis­takes, they’ll achieve the wis­dom to avoid big ones in the future.

The Chal­lenge

• What can you do to increase your own mis­take rate in a healthy range of accel­er­at­ed learning?
• Where are you play­ing too safe and too slow?
• How can you accel­er­ate the growth of the peo­ple around you as they progress towards mastery?

About Kevin:

CEOs typ­i­cal­ly place their first call to Coach Kevin with a cri­sis to solve. They stay because of his busi­ness acu­men and no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is style.

Kevin’s career spans 20 years, over a dozen coun­tries and four con­ti­nents. He’s worked with hun­dreds of CEOs and exec­u­tives, help­ing them to break through busi­ness chal­lenges, grow their com­pa­nies and find per­son­al suc­cess along the way.

These expe­ri­ences inspired Kevin’s book, Your Oxy­gen Mask First, in which he reveals the 17 habits every leader must know to tran­scend the per­ils of suc­cess, and achieve even more.

About Lawrence & Co:

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.