Innovation, Failure, Leadership, & Owning our Imperfections
In today’s world of entrepreneurship, innovation, and rapid-cycle prototyping failure is embraced as a critical data point that leads towards success. We see bold examples of groups coming together to acknowledge that failure is part of the beauty and art of striving forward. Failure is a key part of the innovation cycle and is the best opportunity to be better. Harnessing the lessons of failure is seen as a critical component to any individual or organization that labors to be successful in today’s climate.
When we are talking about questions or problems with yes/no solutions and prototypes, failure is a positive. But when we talk about failure as in “I failed” it is more difficult to swallow. I loved this recent article “When Millennial’s Fail” because it reminded me of a key point: Failure in some circles (i.e., innovation and entrepreneurship)is good but failure in others (i.e, school and leadership) is not embraced. In one aspect we look at failure as a process and in the other an end result.
We are putting a lot of faith in one word: failure. So lets put failure in its place. Failure is measured at a single point in time. Failure is rarely (if ever) definitive. Let’s think about failure not as a single idea, but as a dynamic idea that includes mistakes, trials, and imperfections.
Failure is lack of success. Mistakes are actions or judgements that are misguided. Trials are a test of performance or qualilties. Imperfection is simply when something or someone is not completely free of faults.
The key difference between these four things is measurement. Failure is measured. Failure is measured through product testing for innovators just as it is measured through testing for kids in classrooms. Failure is measured against success. Success is simply achieving intended outcomes. When it comes to testing (albeit a product or skill) there is a point in which we have predetermined success, a point in which we can see “we didn’t fail.”
We say we celebrate failure (as in “try and try again” failure) but maybe we aren’t quite ready to truly embrace failure. We are not yet celebrating failure as a part of trails, mistakes, and imperections. We are not yet celebrating failure in process and failure as an outcome. We are not yet celebrating the power of “yet” or “trying” or “progress.”
As an educator, I haven’t heard a lot of kids celebrate a lower score on a spelling test but I have heard kids celebrate that they, “did better this time.” As an educator, I haven’t heard a lot of kids celebrate their own imperfections. But I have heard kids talk about goals and what they want to learn and what they want to improve upon. As an educator I have heard kids talk about “I can’t do it yet.” As an educator I have heard kids talk about “trying and trying again.”
Are we celebrating failure as the result or are we celebrating failure as part of the process? Its an important point to distinguish our efforts. Especially in education.
In education we put a lot of stock in developing our kids as “fail fest fanatics,” but do we do the same for our leaders and teachers? Traditionally we don’t hear a lot of leaders or teachers acknowledge when they have failed. In fact we do not see a lot of leaders or teachers acknowledging when they have public moments of imperfection.
In schools every day children are put into a position of ownership of their shortcomings. Talking in the hall, having too much fun with one’s food during lunch, not getting homework done because grandparents were visiting and they had a late soccer game, not achieving satisfactory scores on a spelling test, not asking to get a drink or go to the bathroom, etc. Our kids own their shortcomings and they are expected to talk about them, reflect on them, own them, and improve them.
We make our kids own their mistakes and we deliver consequences for their incremental failure to abide. But when was the last time we heard anyone in a traditional leadership role utter words of ownership over failures?
Really think about the last time we heard an educational leader say, “I screwed up but I have learned and next time we will do better. This is how...”
We hold our kids to standards of acceptance around the process of failure that (if met by most leaders) would be be met with fear. Fear of ridicule, fear of parents, fear of losing our jobs, and the list sadly continues on and on and on. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The important word in that definition is belief. We will not know that our community of learners won’t embrace imperfection, mistakes, or failure until we try. We will not know how to acknowledge “messing up” with a stance of grace and humility and awareness until we practice.
We can not expect perfection in our educational leaders in an era of innovation; the two efforts fight against one another. We need leaders who can facilitate innovation, not leaders that are too scared to engage in trials and rapid cycle prototyping to better education for our kids.
The exciting part of today is that there is a shift in the tide regarding failure and imperfection in education. And that tide is awesome. With educators who I am lucky enough to learn from and respect a great deal, there is one consistent among those I would consider leaders; they love that they are not perfect.
This is a new trait among leaders and I, for one, love it. These leaders who see imperfections as opportunity have the right attitude about failure, trials, and mistakes. They see their classrooms and practices as innovators would; “I will try it and if it fails we will (as a class) learn from it and move on.”
They acknowledge that in any two classrooms the same lesson won’t be equally successful. They want feedback. They want to brainstorm. They want to empower others. They want to share ideas. They will teach first and punish at the absolute last. They want data that matters. They want to inspire and motivate and give students voice. They want schools to model leadership and those skills of importance in today’s culture.
These educators are not simply striving to teach our kids a lesson that most adults cannot even uphold (own your imperfections, mistakes, failures, etc.) they are holding themselves to the same standards.
They are being transparent about their shortcomings, they are being purposeful about their growth. Just as we have seen innovators embrace the “we will find out” mindset, this new generation of educational leaders embrace the “lets try it and find out” process. The beauty is that they are doing so with thought, planning, and are not approaching their responsibilities as haphazard decision-makers. These educators are acting as innovators would in the private sector. They are more apt than their predecessors to say “we thought we made the best decision possible with the information available and it appears we did not.” They do not fear that moment, and they acknowledge that those moments happen all the time. They see value in hearing leadership be humble, they see value in seeing adults lead for our children by example. They know that everyone around them will learn from imperfections of themselves and others.
As we think about the celebration of failure, let’s think carefully about the expectations we have for ourselves, our leaders, and our students.
Do we demand unattainable perfection? Do we truly embrace failure as a process that can lead to success? Do we want our students to display characteristics of innovation that our systems of education can not yet come close to understanding let alone practicing?
As parents, educators, leaders, and community members lets figure out what we are after and develop those traits in ourselves as well as our children. Let us not expect something of our children that we can not fully uphold as adults. Life is complicated and messy. Education is complicated and messy. Failure is complicated and messy. Accepting that we are imperfectly human can be complicated and messy.
Its like the new version of the golden rule, “see the beauty of failing, making mistakes, and being imperfect in others as you would want others to see the beauty of failing, making mistakes, and being imperfect in you.”
What is not messy is trying our best and knowing that sometimes we all come up a little short, and it is universally okay to own that. Look for these new leaders I am so inspired by to create an example for each of us, and most importantly create an example for our kids.
I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect. Get over it. Embrace that we fail each day, and if we are lucky with every failure we learn.
