Many years ago when I was Director of IT and Security at a very large enterprise I was fond of saying “fail faster” to my staff. I wanted them to feel comfortable with the idea that they should focus on always improving. The CIO was not fond of this and constantly asked me why a Director of Security, of all people, would encourage failure?
I could give a hundred examples (sports, martial arts, arts, etc.) where a perfect score is not only unlikely but self-defeating. This was familiar to some, but others still tried to prove to me that “only first place matters” and failures always should be downplayed or obscured. My fear was that their behavior was a slippery slope to fraud. Their concern was that my behavior was demotivating.
Today I noticed a social psychologist’s study and explanation of how accepting mistakes actually can motivate and reduce the frequency of errors:
Too often, when the boss gives us an assignment, we expect to be able to do the work flawlessly, no matter how challenging it might be. The focus is all about being good, and the prospect becomes terrifying. Even when we are assigning ourselves a new task, we take the same approach – expecting way too much too soon.
The irony is that all this pressure to be good results in many more mistakes, and far inferior performance, than would a focus on getting better.
It also reminds me of a successful executive who said he always preferred to hire professional athletes: “They know how to lose better than anyone — learn from their mistakes and then get right back up and try harder”
