LITERATURE REVIEW
'Failure Is the mother of success' is an old Chinese proverb at odds with dictionary definitions which describe failure in a far less flattering light. Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com (n.d.) describes it as the opposite of success while Dictionary.Cambridge.org (n.d.) refers to shortcomings and fruitless attempts. But while it is generally understood as an outcome to avoid, over the last few decades, a small but growing movement has emerged aiming to reposition failure. Failure-friendly attitudes have emerged in a range of arenas, prompting Harvard Business Review to devote an entire issue to the benefits of failure (https://hbr.org/archive-toc/BR1104). Similarly, numerous TED talks reframe failure in a positive light (https://www.ted.com/topics/failure). In the workplace, tolerance of failure is embedded in Agile development strategies such as Lean, (Reis, 2011) UX and Scrum (Kniberg and Skarin, 2010) which rely on iterative practice to uncover early failure. Admissions of failure have even emerged as a popular social activity, as events like Fuckup Nights, where attendees share their misadventures on stage (https://www.fuckupnights.com). Their stated mission is to 'celebrate trying'. Alternatively, youthful missteps are celebrated at Mortified (https://getmortified.com) where cringeworthy passages from childhood diaries are shared with strangers, while drinks are poured. Similar initiatives are also available online, including The Failure Project (https://thefailureproject.tumblr.com) and Admitting Failure (https://www.admittingfailure.org). This growing recognition of failure as either a learning resource or spiritual journey (Roberts, 2020) represents a gradual shift in societal tolerance of imperfection.
In highly competitive pursuits, players may be more accustomed to failure, but it is more often the case that failure is seen as something to be avoided in the pursuit of success. An anomaly can be found in the field of design where failure is a worthy pursuit (Kelley and Kelley, 2013). Arnold (2016) establishes that fear of making mistakes builds an emotional barrier to creativity. This is supported by Von Thienen et al (2017) who submit that failure provokes inspiration, while fear of it stifles creativity. Roth (2015) acknowledges that creative processes pretty much guarantees exposure to failure as they entail ongoing evaluating and improving of prototypes. IDEO, a design firm credited with pioneering design thinking, proposes reframing failure 'as designing experiments through which you’re going to learn' (Brown, n.d.). Another design firm, UsTwo, promotes ‘succailure’, as the art of failing well (Rahmen and Harle, 2020).
Fig. 1 Iterative aspect of Agile processes (Credit: Garcia, 2019)
BENEFITS
Despite seeming counterintuitive, provided that failing generates new insight, Sitkin (1992, p.237) asserts that 'failing is good'. Another supporter of failure you learn from, is Savoia (2019), who encourages pre-totyping, early experimentation designed to quickly identify market fit before valuable time and resources are committed. IDEO suggests that little Fs, or small fails are instrumental in avoiding big F’s, larger flops (Tucker, 2017). Several key benefits are seen by Tversky and Kahneman (1974) as being derived from analysis of failure, including the opportunity for learning, updating of outdated paradigms with innovative approaches and building resilience through enhanced flexibility.
Learning
Matson (1991) introduced intelligent fast failure, a learning strategy where opportunities for failure are intentionally incorporated within education practices, after discovering that embarking on a series of rapid solutions ultimately produced superior outcomes to focusing on the single best solution. Sitkin (1992) suggests that integrated strategic failure can similarly enhance learning in an institutional setting, by providing a superior stimulus to learning from success, provided that it creates new knowledge. Gino and Pisano (2011) concur that success is less conducive to learning by deterring comprehensive analysis, whereas failure demands it. From a creative perspective. Failure is waht pushes designers beyond a base-level understanding of a problem, according to Corazza (2016), where initial concepts which are less inspired are passed over to achieve more innovative solutions. Thomke (2003) contends that companies that learn through purposeful experimentation are more innovative, and achieve higher levels of success than organizations that play it safe,, despite the added risk of failure.
Cognitive psychology influences the level to which different personality types benefit from failure. Yeager and Dweck (2012) highlight how mindset impacts one’s level of tenacity in facing challenges, impacting learning outcomes. Those with a fixed mindset see their abilities as set at birth (ex: I’m just not good at math), making it unlikely for them to persevere over failure, because of their inability to envision improvement. Meanwhile, people who exhibit a growth mindset view their potential skill set as unlimited, which allows them to conceptualize failure as merely a challenge on the path to mastery. Thomas’ (2014, p.74) confirms that persistence is a key determinant of future success, because: ‘It’s not failure itself that leads to success; rather, it’s the willingness to pick yourself up...it’s only truly a failure if you give up’.
Not everyone supports the learning from failure discourse. Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach (2019) counter that the threat failure poses to one’s ego actually undermines learning. Because the human psyche distances itself from negative perceptions, people facing failure may tune out, and thereby fail to learn. By altering their study so that participants could learn from failure of others, their pride is no longer at stake, resulting in improved learning.
Ulmer et al (2017) assert that inferior knowledge sharing practices deter learning, pointing out that learning from failure can only be successful if recalled when needed. Similarly, Bae and Koo (2008) assert that knowledge transfer losses impede organizational learning due to employees changing roles, turnover and retirement. To keep from constantly reinventing the wheel, knowledge must remain in circulation, or it gets lost. To preserve lessons that failure has taught, Ulmer et al (2017) recommend that companies identify failure both within the company and at similar organizations, share lessons throughout the company and actively draw off the collective knowledge.
Innovation
Derived from novus (Latin for new), innovation depicts the drive to implement leading edge ideas (Kahn, 2018). Inasmuch as novel concepts are derived from speculative probes, Innovation and experimentation are inextricably linked (Dunne, 2018). Whereas a successful experiment continues on course, unsuccessful outcomes push innovative thinking by demanding novel solutions (Amabile, 1988). Cannon and Edmondson (2005) recognize that the experimental mindset needed to generate new ideas calls for a longer term strategy than many companies are willing to take. That is why it often takes failure to expose the need for new solutions which finally disrupts old ways of doing things (Louis and Sutton, 1991). Failure forces the rethinking of outdated phenomena (Kuhn, 2012) and refreshing of mental models (Moon et al, 2019) .
As experiments are uncertain, and come with a high probability of failure, risk averse organizations make fewer experiments and as a result are less innovative (Petroski, 2012). On the other end of the spectrum, startups looking to gain a foothold within mature markets frequently operate in the innovation space (Reis, 2011). From a design perspective, experimentation is viewed by Cross (2011) as the engine of creativity and the root of innovative thinking. As many types of organizations now wish to become more innovative, design thinking is a strategy that applies creative practices to tackle a variety of problems outside the design arena (Brown and Katz, 2019).
Resilience
Nietzsche’s (1889) affirmation of resilience, 'What does not kill me makes me stronger,' aptly describes a benefit of overcoming adversity, namely that it builds endurance. Changes made within an organization in reaction to failure increase variation and diversification, boosting adaptability (Weick, 1979). Watkins and Bazerman (2003) warn that organizations who fail to learn from failure increase their vulnerability to predictable surprises, or issues that could have been avoided had management been mindful of obvious clues. 'To err is human, to forgive divine' (Pope, 1908, p.14) is an oft cited poem that recognizes human error as fact, where mistakes can be expected. Similarly, Tversky and Kahneman (1974) assert that failure is imminent, making avoidance futile. Instead of wasting energy trying to eliminate error, they suggest a more pragmatic approach of accepting the inevitability of failure, and using it as a method to increase resilience. Sitkin (1992) contends that learning from prior success is a short term strategy, where sticking with what works enhances reliability and efficiency and profitability, but at the expense of adaptability and resilience. Harford (2011) looks at history to show the unreliability of even expert predictions, suggesting that planning cannot guarantee avoidance of failure free. The best way to survive failure, is to get accustomed to it.
BARRIERS
As organizations are made up of individuals, human needs extend into the workplace, creating a variety of constraints to learning from failure.
Fear
Kelley and Kelley (2013, p. 40) identify fear as 'the single biggest obstacle people face to creative success'. In the face of large scale issues, fear can result in immobilization (Weick, 1984). Savoia, claims that most people suffer from 'failophobia' (2019, p.36), giving the example of Google, who despite being ultra supportive of experimentation and accepting of failure, has trouble getting staff to join new projects that might fail. Financial incentives alone are insufficient to overcome human nature which resists failure (Teller, 2016). Sitkin (1992) asserts that fear breeds complacency, relating how in many organizations, failed tries are more likely to be punished than failure to try, resulting in employees playing it safe.
Trust
Cannon and Edmondson (2005) recognize that it is rare for coworkers to trust each to the same degree as dependable friends. They highlight the need for psychological safety, where employees feel no threats of retribution, making them secure enough to bring up errors or weaknesses. Sitkin (2020), contends that trust alone may not be enough to overcome human nature, providing the example of after action reviews used by the military to formalize feedback that might otherwise be concealed.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem can get in the way, because maintaining a high self-opinion runs contrary to accepting fault, flaws and failure (Goleman, 1985). People act in a way to reduce anxiety, so even when openness would increase a team's efficacy, their priority is to save face (Argyris, 1990). Edmondson (1999) recognizes that simply asking for help can tarnish one's image by giving the appearance of incompetence. Acknowledging failure may be viewed as weakness, which would diminish respect from coworkers (Cannon and Edmondson, 2005).
Persistence
Goldman and Kabayadondo (2017) establish that failure and the persistence to keep trying after having failed are key ingredients of success. Dweck’s (2012) research establishes that one’s mindset molds the perception of what we are capable of, influencing our stamina to overcome adversity. A fixed mindset views abilities as predetermined at birth, removing any incentive to take on challenges above one’s perceived level. In contrast, a growth mindset views innate talents as merely the starting point. The potential for improvement creates the persistence to face challenges that might result in failure. Lewis (2014) determines that it is not persistence, which is focused on a particular goal, but grit, which is more of a lifelong endurance, that is needed to overcome recurring failure, on the path towards mastery.
Avoidance
Because failure is an uncomfortable state, we tend not to dwell on it. Getting past it quickly may reduce anxiety, but it undermines learning which requires revisiting and analyzing what went wrong (Lewis, 2014). Avoidance begins at an early age, where the notion of failure is hidden within American primary school education. While the intention is to avoid discouraging children, Lottero-Perdue and Parry (2014) see this as reducing resilience to failure they will face later in life. Human psychology employs a variety of defenses to avoid anxiety inducing situations like failure, such as not hearing, denying that it applies or rationalizing that it's off base (Schein, 1992). Additionally, our self-serving attributional bias creates the tendency to take credit for success, but attribute failure elsewhere (Brown and Rogers, R, 1991). March and Levinthal (1993) point out that denial may not be overt, or even intentional, and can simply mean over reporting success while under reporting failure. Naturally, it is impossible to learn from problems that are not acknowledged (Tavris and Aronson (2020).
Summary
Having reviewed a great deal of literature on the topic, it’s clear that even the most prominent voices on the subject of failure admit that ‘failure is not an inherently desirable outcome’ (Sitkin, 1992, p.240). This is because it is not failure that is particularly alluring, but rather, that it provides ‘small doses of experience to discover uncertainties unpredictable in advance’ (Wildavsky, 1988, p. 26).
As individuals, we already learn to do most everything through trial & error, and while it can be unpleasant, as IDEO likes to say ‘failure sucks, but instructs’ (Kelley & Kelley, 2013). However, within a company setting, acceptance of failure remains an untapped resource to extract otherwise overlooked knowledge, permits risky experiments that yield new ideas and builds preparedness for what is a fairly regular occurrence. Due to the nature of work, and less than perfect work environments, our human nature brings fear, desire, need and habit into the picture. I have included several short summaries here in the interest of showing a more complete picture of human barriers, and concede that institutional barriers were omitted on account of space and time limitations. My intention then, has been to gain as thorough an understanding of failure, its possibilities and constraints, to take with me to my first-person interviews in the field. My intention is to let the user inform the direction of a proposed solution, as dictated by design methodology.