I love to fail

“I love to fail. In fact we encourage all of you to enjoy failing and learn to fail fast and fail often.” - Dr Jones started his speech with these words. He was addressing a group of recent recruits who had just joined his research team. They were all bright, enthusiastic and had just recently joined his organisation.

Rohan was one of the young research scholars and was listening attentively to Dr Jones. He was enjoying listening to the talk but the last few sentences took him by surprise. This was quite contrary to what he has been taught till now. He decided to explore this topic in more detail and speak to Dr Jones separately on this at a later point in time.

Right from our childhood days, we have been taught to pursue success relentlessly and be ashamed of failure. So much so, that there is a stigma associated with failure which makes us feel depressed and even forget it like a bad nightmare. Isn’t this your experience as well?

Now before you think I am being philosophical and start wondering whether you are in the wrong place, let me assure you that a mindset of accepting failure and learning from it is a very important discipline of innovation temper. Raised eyebrows?? Not exactly sure what I am alluding to. Let me explain…..

One of the most important traits which, breeds an innovative culture of an organisation, is to encourage employees to experiment and try out new techniques. Obviously the bolder methods you try, the more the chances of failure. But this should be encouraged and even applauded so that the employees continue bravely on this path.

I was reading an article recently on whether children are more creative than adults and if so, why? I frankly believe that children are definitely more creative than adults and one of the reasons for this is that children (especially small children) are not afraid to try new things and do this without inhibitions. As we grow up, slowly we become more self-conscious and are worried about other’s opinions etc which slowly but steadily makes us avoid risks or makes us stop thinking without inhibitions. As a result, we become less creative and prefer to tread on a known path rather than embracing the unknown.

While this may be OK in other areas, it is definitely something we need to unlearn to innovate in the true sense of the word. The only way we can overcome this fear is when even our failures (not just our successes) are encouraged and even celebrated. When this is done consistently by the top management and over a period of time, slowly we learn to view failure as just another result as success and stop to fear or feel discouraged by it.

But surely, not all kinds of failure are good. Well – there are some failures which do not fall in this category for obvious reasons:

1. Any failure which is repeating over a period of time.


2. Any failure which is due to inefficient processes or poor workmanship


3. Any failure which comes from half baked efforts or due to similar reasons.

Apart from these, failures which are due to people experimenting with established or new processes, failures due to people deviating from the norm should not only be encouraged but also celebrated. These are all good as long as “there is method in the madness” and also the failures are recorded and part of a bigger picture.

While all this sounds very obvious, trust me, implementing this in practice in an organisation needs a lot of courage and patience. It also needs strong reinforcement. Mind you – we are not encouraging all failures (especially of the sort we identified earlier as not good) but advocating that a certain type of failures are good. There is a thin line and it could be confusing at first. But over a period of time, it becomes second nature to everybody and the results will prove that the struggle is definitely worth it. In very simple terms, we are only encouraging everybody to think without boundaries and question everything (very similar to a 5 year old who replies to all your answers only with one question – Why?)

The good part is that this kind of behaviour spreads pretty quickly and soon you will have an entire organisation which thinks in such a way. That is a sure recipe for success and that will only mean that new and innovative ideas are pouring in from all over the organisation.

Won’t it be great if we can achieve that? Well – the good news is that it can be achieved. Let me end on that pleasant note.