Learning to fail

i was eight years old

it was the christmas nativity play i

didn’t get to play mary

i didn’t even get a costume but

i had a special part i was the narrator

in reality it was a bit of a continuity

announcer to allow

time for set and scene changes and

costume changes backstage

we got to the final dress rehearsal in

front of the full school

the full school slightly more terrifying

than an actual performance in front of

parents who let’s face it

want you to do well so

the final things were nearly upon us

and i skipped a line just one line

but it was a very important line

it was the line that signaled to the

backstage team

to open the curtains for the final scene

so they didn’t

i carried on we got to the end the

curtains opened

there was applause i could feel

the eyes of the entire cast burning into

the back of my neck

my cheeks burned my eyes filled

with tears they had missed their entire

final thing because i had failed

nowadays they’d call it an epic fail

these things can really shape you as a

young person

i might not have gone back for the final

performance

i might never have spoken in public

again

even worse my teacher might have decided

to get somebody else to do it

i had failed

i still remember how it made me feel

embarrassed at getting it wrong

and shame shame because i had let down

the group of people i worked with

in my work i find it really interesting

to see how we teach young people to

learn how to cope with failure

for me there is a real culture of shame

particularly around failure in northern

ireland and it’s something that we need

to challenge

when i was talking about how we cope

with this with a colleague in finland

she said but why do you call it failure

it’s just learning

it was a moment that maybe really made

me stop

and think she was right

it wasn’t necessarily failure it was

just learning

but it made me realize that the

vocabulary and the language

that we learn that we use around failure

really forms our culture and reactions

to it

it is within our gift to do something

about that

we can create a culture that will allow

our young people to learn

to experience failure and to learn

how to come back from it

i find that in finland they have

a day for failures every october

it was set up a decade ago and it was

created

for the purpose of people to share their

failures

on social media to share them so that

they could be used

as learning experiences famous people

talk about failures they have had and

how

they have learned they have created

a language of learning

i’m slightly more surprised to hear at a

recent conference

that nasa has an award for failure

now nasa is the sort of organization

that i would have expected

would seek perfection at all points

but they do indeed have a smart

fail award under the innovation category

because nasa have recognized that you

cannot create

a culture that seeks innovation and

creativity

if you don’t allow some space for a

level of failure

i read the award criteria because yes

there are criteria

and in the criteria it talks about

productive

and unproductive failures

productive failures are the ones they

are looking for where people have taken

the failure

and learnt from the experience to go

forward

and to do better next time

they’ve created a language of learning

it’s within our gift to do this it’s

within our gift to create that language

and culture of learning around failure

for our young people to create an

environment where we can

coach them and provide them with

feedback

where they learn not to fear feedback

but actively seek it

to understand that feedback when it is

given with good intent

can truly be a gift

i find that many people as they move

through their careers

often start to understand this and

really take on board the concept of

coaching

maybe it’s because we’ve got a bit older

and we’re slightly less worried about

what people think of us

but when they undertake coaching they

start to seek out feedback

and gain great personal development they

listen to others and they learn

and they grow what a gift

it would be if we could support our

young people

to start their careers with this sort of

a mindset

as parents as managers as leaders let’s

work to create

a culture where we learn from those

failures

certainly we want to help young people

to strive to achieve

challenging goals and to stretch

themselves but a true part of that

is also making sure that they have the

capacity to learn

when it doesn’t go to plan and do better

next time

to help them make their failures become

productive for me as a parent

that means that i’m trying to learn to

work with my children

on how they approach different exams and

tests that they undertake

what i want them to do is to be able to

view a test as an

opportunity to test their learning which

is what it’s really meant to do

it’s not meant to be just about the

score

to let them learn how do they use it to

identify the gaps in their knowledge

so that they can go back and understand

where they need to focus

to help them learn their strengths and

weaknesses

we’re preparing young people for a world

that is constantly changing

we know the often quoted statistics that

many of the jobs that they will be in

have not yet been created they will

change different career paths they will

move into different sectors

they will constantly need to learn and

adapt

i find often as adults we present this

uncertain future in a way that can

create fear

for the young people instead

let’s think about how do we create that

culture

where they can learn and adapt and know

how to improve

when i think back of the young people

that i’ve worked with over the years

the ones that have gone on to the

greatest success

were not the ones that got all the wins

and the awards

they were the ones that had failures and

challenges

and turned those into productive

failures

when they didn’t win an award they went

and asked for feedback

why did we not what criteria did we not

meet

they took advice from their business

mentors they heard the feedback that the

customers were giving them through

selling or not selling

they heard that information and they

converted it

into learning they have learned

they made the most of their dress

rehearsals

as for me i did go back i did do

the final performance in school i

faced that failure my teacher worked

with me to understand that lines aren’t

just for learning to say back

they serve a purpose and they had a cue

so i needed to understand the purpose

beside them

my mother who’s from this very city

worked with me to practice until i was

confident

and able to go back on stage i was

fortunate that i had a network of people

around me to support me

and help me learn to ensure that that

failure

became a productive one meant i was able

to turn

that bad dress rehearsal into a great

performance to re-establish the

relationship with my friends

and also learn that the worst could

happen

and i could recover

it’s time for us to change our

relationship with failure

let’s use that vocabulary to build a

language

so that failures can be used

productively

let’s create that culture’s support

around everybody at school

and in the workplace to encourage

feedback and learning

let’s recognize the failures and move

forward

just imagine what we could achieve then

you