Many organizational cultures punish ‘failure’. This fear of failure leads to a lot of average and mediocre work product. No failure, yes. But, also no winning.
Our culture, for the most part, seems to have become caught in a mindset that failure is bad and needs to be avoided at all costs. However, experimentation and trial and error are marvelous ways to come up with great outcomes, as long as their is not a critical amount of risk.
Without failure, there’s no learning, no growth, no excitement. "Oooh, yeah!! I get to be average today!!!!"
We’ve even brought this ‘don’t fail’ mentality to our children, although to a lesser extent. Lego blocks are set to build certain things, with instructions on exactly how to create what's on the box. What happened to making great things out of Lego’s that came from our mind? We scold our kids for making a bad play on the basketball court or we force our school to forbid playing tag because it was getting too rough. If we are placing our children in situations where they’re being instructed to not fail/lose, how can we expect them to expand themselves?
I understand that winning and the concept of striving towards a goal can motivate people to find new processes and strategies to win. Failing during such a quest is often a core component towards winning.
Losing has become nearly a pure negative outcome. Losing, most times, has several learning opportunities within them. If we take those learnings and apply them in future situations, we’ve won. The destination may not have been reached as quickly as we assumed or wished. But, the end result brought forth a lot more substance that will help in the end. Our systems and processes work better and success becomes more repeatable.
My oldest son was a baseball pitcher in his youth. After his first couple of times on the mound, he decided that he was going to focus on not making mistakes. Those mistakes (walks and wild pitches) brought in runs. By abandoning experimentation and failure, he provided little positive energy or special outcomes. I talked with him about pushing to failure. I asked him what the ramifications would be for letting his pitching loose and being agressive. Would they lose by more? Would there be more walks? Would that really mean anything given how badly they were losing games already? He agreed he had nothing to lose by pushing the envelope and exploring what was possible. The result was the three best outings he had all season, including a complete game, 4-hit shutout.
Encourage your team – and yourself – to be curious. Expect them to make mistakes and learn from them. Be supportive of their learning process. Know when they may be in over their head and get them the resources they need to be successful. Once the spectre of an huge hammer coming down on their head is removed, the freedom given will bring exponential returns.
More energy, and greater results come from fun and laughter than from fear and screams.