We often grow and learn the most through our failures. We like to believe that when we do that right thing, it will feel good. When it comes to learning through failure, even the best kind of failure, this belief is a myth. Learning from failure is not always fun. In fact, it usually isn’t. Failure shakes our confidence, undermines our self-worth, and leaves us with regret. We pay the price for our growth from failure. We can learn from any failure, but we learn the most from intelligent failures.
Amy Edmondson defines intelligent failure by four attributes:
🗺️It takes place in new territory.
🎯The context presents the opportunity to advance towards a goal.
🔬It is informed by available knowledge (hypothesis driven).
📦The size of the failure is minimized while still providing insights.
Intelligent failure helps us learn and innovate, but it still hurts. I received a blunt reminder of this fact during a recent Jiu Jitsu training session. I was practicing a new technique (new territory) in live sparring (advancing toward the goal of proficiency) based on the strategy I had been taught (hypothesis driven). It failed, but I learned a lot in the process. This all occurred during a timed training round with a friendly partner (minimize the size of the failure). None-the-less, I spent a solid five minutes getting my neck cranked while I was smashed from top pressure. Even though that is par for the course with training, I can’t say that I enjoyed the experience all that much at the time. But I learned the most about my game in that five minutes as a I have in many months of training.
The pain we face when we fail at work isn’t physical for most of us. But the mental suffering can be just as bad, if not worse. If we are to get better, we need to become comfortable sitting with the discomfort that comes with not succeeding at everything all the time. Growth and innovation only come through enduring failure.