How to Be Innovative #2 Don't Think About Failure, Think About What Have You Learned

“Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity – not a threat”

Steve Jobs, 2010

Many of us are brought up believing that failure is a bad thing. Our early childhood experiences typically involve being laughed-at for getting things wrong. Although we have to learn the difference between right and wrong and what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we are often not taught how to learn from our mistakes.

The famous inventor Thomas Edison story tells of how he invented the light bulb. He tried more than 2,000 experiments before he got the electric bulb to work (although, I suspects that it was not exactly 2,000 experiments. It just mean lots of failed experiments). A reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times, Edison responded, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000 step process.” At every stage, he learnt what worked and what did not. If he had given up at stage one, the world would be a darker place today!

The problem we have today is that we have a low tolerance for failure, especially in evangelism and business environment. Failure or the perception of failure is often treated with dismissal, although the reality is that although the expected results may not have been achieved, those involved learned a valuable lesson. A 1976 study carried out by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, on the reasons for major engineering failures, found insufficient knowledge to be their primary cause. The more information we have, the less likely we are to fail, so engineers today are more likely to get things right by learning from what didn’t work in the past.

This is true for all aspects of our lives, whether it is work, at home or during leisure. We need to learn from our mistakes rather than trying to forget them and move on. In every situation, it can be worthwhile jotting down or take a mental note on what has worked and what hasn’t. Commits it to memory because it can provide a useful reference when you face a similar situation or a new challenge. Don’t think about failure, instead think about unexpected outcome!

Practical Suggestions:

§  If something hasn’t worked, don’t focus on the failure, instead think about what did work and learn from it

§  Think about what hasn’t worked for you in the past and reflect on how you dealt with the situation and what you leaned. What this a positive or negative or growing experience? Did you come out of the situation a better person?

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)