Watching the Olympics these last couple of weeks I have been struck by the difference between mistakes and failure. Last night Sasha Cohen skated onto the ice as a potential gold medalist and within seconds fell attempting her first jump. What came next? She bobbled the second jump too. What came next? She pulled herself together and won the silver.
A week or so ago, also within seconds of starting her program, Chinese pairs skater Zhang Dan was thrown to the ice and crashed into the wall. What came next? Her partner Zhang Hao helped her up, and within minutes they restarted their program and they won silver in their event as well.
How do they try these jumps again so soon after falling on that hard, unforgiving ice? The figure-skating commentators (who aren't winning many fans themselves, but that's another story) have pointed out more than once that attempting a difficult jump and failing gets more points than not attempting it at all. So you could say that it's built into the mechanism of the sport. Try, fail, try again.
I understand making a mistake and "covering" for it in performance. I'm a musician, and one of the things I practice is how I might fudge my way past a forgotten chord change or lyric, so that the performance doesn't come screeching to a halt. But that's not the same thing. There is no fudging around when you land on your butt on the ice. It's obvious. And it's painful. So how do they learn to move past the pain, shame and fear quickly enough to jump right up and move back into the program?
If we could learn that in business, our innovation efforts would be vastly more successful. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Gwen and I are working on a conference presentation based on the "what drives innovation?" theme I've written about here before. As part of our research, last week I interviewed Vincent Barabba, former head of strategy at GM and author of Surviving Transformation. The discussion turned to fear of failure and learning from mistakes, and at one point I apologized for letting us get off topic. "Actually, this is central to your topic," he replied. He's right. Vince's theory -- one mistake should be allowed, and a concerted effort made to learn from that mistake. And the rewards system should reward experimentation.
It seems to me that as a culture -- except for isolated pockets such as sports -- we've lost any serious approach to learning from mistakes. This may be partly because learning from a mistake means taking responsibility for having made it in the first place. If you can't do that, you can't get to the learning.
And then, how *do* you learn from mistakes? It can't be as simple as,"Well, I won't do that *that* way again." It's much too facile to say "we must learn from our mistakes" and "we must create an environment that rewards risk-taking." *How* does that work on a corporate level, or in a business of any size?
Photo: ©Amy Sancetta/AP, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is 
1. vinu on February 25, 2006 3:01 AM writes...
reflecting on your last paragraph - I think the answer lies in trying to answer the question at the employee level and then at the corporate level.
Thinking aloud - a first place to start would be where people openly admit they made these mistakes in life and learn these things. The reward - may be - support and understanding and insights to face situations from collaborative learning and experience sharing
Permalink to Comment2. Fred on February 25, 2006 7:52 PM writes...
The way past this has been known for decades. To see it in action right here in the US, visit http://www.nummi.com/tps.html. Then visit http://www.poppendieck.com/lean.htm to learn how Toyota came by this system. Pay particular attention to Demming's role; decades ago, I knew a man who had worked with Demming in post-war Japan. Finally, ponder how it is possible that General Motors has learned absolutely nothing from its fifty percent ownership in a company (NUMMI) that uses the production system that its co-owner, Toyota, is using to whip the heck out of it in the marketplace, a production system, I remind you, that Toyota got in no small part from us.
Permalink to Comment3. Michael Wagner on February 27, 2006 12:00 AM writes...
It takes a lot of will power to learn from mistakes. Vinu is right that support and understanding needs to be present. Otherwise individuals might just not be able to own the mistakes and begin the learning.
And Fred makes a good point that for some reason companies like Toyota have taken well to the teaching of the quality movement. But that still leave us with the question, why Toyota gets it and GM doesn't to use the illustration.
I would add to this dialogue, clarity around the answer to the folowing question helps groups learn from mistakes. What do we want to create?
It seems to me when every one is clear on the answer to this question learning from mistakes takes on an importance and generates some will power and energy. But my experience in groups has been that we seldom start with a creative mission we all feel strong enough about to risk all that we must risk to let the learning happen.
Good posting. A good reflection - thanks!
Permalink to Comment4. Joe Meilak on February 27, 2006 6:45 AM writes...
From my experience in innovation management and hours of organisational observations it seems that western cultures 'disown' failures. Asking around it is human nature. Mind you same goes for Asian organisations. There is a grey area between owning mistakes or witchhunting and the learning organisation.
Organisations whose leadership is focused on learning, teamwork and collectivism tend to embrace learning opportunities and build on mistakes, whilst others who are goal focused and adoperate a hire-and-fire policy without much consideration of the humane aspect of organisations are less receptive.
In my work as an SME and startup mentor failure if bead and butter. If u want an analogy with flying we fly with parachutes on all the time as a standard. But each new flight we have the peace of mind that if we are to ditch next time the reason will be different from the last. As you go along u perfect the act.
Permalink to Comment5. Renee on February 27, 2006 10:13 AM writes...
Thanks for the feedback!
Vinu, I think you are right that it needs to start at the individual level.
Fred, I read the links you sent, and while you are right, I think that lean manufacturing only gets us halfway there. There's a difference between continuous process improvement and ownership of out-and-out mistakes. Also, it's hard to see how lean manufacturing principles will help outside manufacturing/product development. And that's only part of the problem.
Michael, I don't know if you are familiar with the TRIZ system, but in that system you are to start the problem-solving process with a statement of the IFR -- the Ideal Final Result. This does clarify thinking and generate energy around the search for solutions, rather than having energy generated around the quest to be perfect.
Joe, I agree with you about that "grey area." That seems to me to be the "dark side" of the quality movement and even the NUMMI-Toyota approach. It's too easy to turn it into a witchhunt.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful comments!
:) renee
Permalink to Comment6. Fred on February 27, 2006 9:45 PM writes...
"There's a difference between continuous process improvement and ownership of out-and-out mistakes. Also, it's hard to see how lean manufacturing principles will help outside manufacturing/product development."
Take a look at http://www.nummi.com/us_roots.html. Then consider that not only are workers expected to accept responsibility for errors they make, but that they are also empowered to stop the line if/when an error is detected.
Toyota has embedded the culture of continuous improvement into their operations, to include empowering the workforce while insisting that all take responsibility. I suggest that this, per se, is transferrable to any business or industry, but only if top management is ready, willing, and (most importantly) able to orchestrate massive changes in corporate culture. In environments such as the Big Three, where there is a long history of confrontational labor-management relations punctuated with the buying of labor peace, such a change may well be impossible.
Permalink to Comment7. Jasneet on March 1, 2006 11:29 PM writes...
Mistakes are bound to happen, as no one is perfect since born...!
IF we all understand this in our hearts, anyone would be able to admit it and learn form the mistakes to carry on in life for self-betterment. I don’t see any difference is corporative/business life or personal life here...its all the way you believe and take things.
Its all about honesty and self realization. When u do a mistake or in other words "fail" its very human one becomes little embarrassed to accept, but its just about telling yourself "Hey you can do it surely better next time".
All i would say is.... Be honest to yourself!
Permalink to Comment8. Jessica Margolin on April 14, 2006 6:23 PM writes...
As an adult, we have already learned what to do when we make a mistake or have a failure. As teens, we at least know what to do when we make a mistake, though we're still learning in areas that are new to us (like, say, dating). As children, we learn what to do when we make mistakes.
How do we learn that? From our parents' reactions to our mistake-making. From our parents' lack of anxiety over the entire concept of goofing up. When parents don't have that perspective, when they panic, do the work for their kids, or prompt them every five minutes for homework, kids don't learn how to recover from mistakes.
The natural extrapolation from that is that they grow into adults who have a difficult time trying anything new, and a worse time recovering when they fall.
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