Principled Innovation LLC

The power of deliberate mistakes

September 12th, 2006

Great post today on SVN focusing on the very insightful words of designer Diego Rodriguez. Among Diego’s many compelling perspectives shared in this post, I’ve chosen tonight to focus on this one:

Fail early, fail often. Build a prototype. Think global, drink local. Catch something on fire. Why not screw something up today instead of strategizing for the next month? You might learn something. No — you WILL learn something. What’s the worst that could happen?

We are well beyond the point where it is enough just to be comfortable with risk-taking in our organizations. In this environment, simply tolerating failure is woefully insufficient. We need to wholeheartedly embrace failure and actively plan for it. We need to leverage the power of deliberate mistakes, mindful errors intentionally designed to produce the kind of learning you do not experience when everything goes even mostly according to plan. Most of your members won’t mind mistakes that help them and you uncover something new on which you can build for the future. The mistakes they mind–and you should as well–are the mindless screw-ups and arrogant presumptions that suggest you’ve never learned anything before and won’t learning anything in the future.

If you’re a leader in your association, challenge your colleagues to build failure into all plans, no matter how mundane. Ask different questions so you’re prepared to capitalize on learning opportunities. “How did this happen?,” isn’t a learning question, but “Why did it happen in this way?” is. Open your eyes, your mind and your heart and your mistakes will reveal things you would not otherwise see, feel or think about. Give it a try. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator, Simplicity, We Have Always Done It That Way