How to really learn from failure

Photo credit: Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

I’ve got failure on my mind. The word is circling in the air around me, encouraging me to lean in and listen deeply while it whispers sweet nothings. I’m working on a conference program committee and we identified “failure makes us better” as a theme for conference submissions. I’ve got a colleague who is leading a webinar this month about failure. I’ve spent the last few years coming to terms with some major failures in my work of brave, honest conversations and I’ve been wrestling with the emotional and intellectual impacts of these failures, and reflecting on what isn’t working in the public arena.

For years I’ve tried really hard to be open talking about failure even when it hurts; raising it in speeches to groups small and large, inviting reflection, growth and learning about what happens when we don’t live up to our own or other’s expectations. I gave the opening keynote speech at the 2018 IAP2 North American conference about a really personal and professional failure that shook me to my core (you can watch the video of that talk here). I’ve written blogs about failing to not write a book when I planned to (although stay tuned — it looks like that book is finally coming out in 2020!) and about my failure to be brave as f&%@ when I thought I needed to be. I pretty much fail regularly.

That said, I still have a lot to learn about failure. I think we all do.

I had a conversation with a friend this morning where we talked about how messy and complicated real collaboration can be. In the course of our discussion we tracked through the discomfort and emotional resiliency that is required for true collaboration, and how deep the desire can be to find the easy, quick fix to build trust, strengthen relationships and get tangible results when people or groups work together. Many of my clients come to me wishing for the easiest, simplest path to resolution — the path with the fewest bumps, least discomfort and the “life hacks” laid out in a checklist. I wish that for them too.

However, I have learned (the super hard way) that there is no easy path to learning lessons, working things out and making things better when everything has gone sideways. It’s really easy to call it a “fail fest” and its really hard to be in the moment of failure, staring the sickening realization that you aren’t what or who you thought you were in the mirror.

Here are a few things I’ve come to realize — the hard way — about learning from failure.

• Failure will strip you naked and have you run down a crowded street on your own. That sounds like a nightmare, and it is. There is no “fun” in failure. It is deeply painful, often full of shame and fear and even grief. It cuts you off at your knees and exposes you to the world. It makes you want to hide, makes your pulse race, keeps you up night after night. I’m speaking from experience. If you haven’t felt these things, then the failure probably wasn’t yours. Maybe you made a mistake or a misstep, but you didn’t fail — there is a distinct difference in terms of impact and scale that distinguishes mistakes from failure. It strikes me that if you can quickly and smoothly talk about learnings and fail fests then you probably made a mistake rather than failed.

• There are deeply painful, usually complicated, multi-faceted stories that go with failure. To tell those stories with integrity, they must be yours to tell. I often say in my workshops on brave, honest conversations that when we leave this discussion you should take your own stories with you, and leave the stories of others behind in this room; we won’t repeat other’s stories when we leave. In some sectors there has been a focus on “collecting stories” to bring lived experience to life; stories of indigenous people; stories of immigrants and refugees; stories of patients. When we “take” someone else’s story and re-tell it for emotional impact we take something precious away from someone else. You can’t dress up someone else’s story and call the learning your own —it lacks integrity and authenticity and becomes performance or theater rather than learning or ownership of failure.

• You have to sink into the failure to learn from it and you have to go through the trench to get to the other side. When you have failed, especially if it is a major failure, it can feel like a disaster. Speaking from experience, it makes you question everything about who you are, what you stand for, your credibility, capacity and abilities. It can make you question your whole life. It hurts physically, emotionally and intellectually. In one of my failures I spent months stressed out, gaining weight, not sleeping, tense, angry and anxious. I decided to take a sabbatical. I thought I would be creative, free and reflective during that time off. Instead I went to therapy, cried a lot and spent every day running or paddle boarding, trying to get away from the pain. The beauty and the horror of it is that there is this requirement to experience the pain as the path to knowledge. You cannot get there without really feeling the feelings. There is no life hack, checklist or step by step guide to finding the lessons or getting out of failure faster. There can be deep, transformative learning in failure but the path to that place is hard and treacherous.

• You are going to fail. If you can let go of your drive to get things perfect or exactly right and be as open about getting it wrong when you fail then it is possible your recovery will be faster. You will have more self-acceptance and be quicker to take ownership of the failure. That will move you from the emotional wasteland of initial failure to recovery and learning. Everyone is talking about running towards failure in order to innovate — and the truth is that trying, testing, creating, iterating and adapting are all steps to true innovation. Organizations and individuals who fail, recover, and get up and do it again are the ones who succeed. That is one of the gifts of failure.

• Your failure is your opportunity and your growing edge. If you can take ownership of your failings with deep humility and self-awareness, you will find the path out. If you don’t own the failure and your role in it with humility and self-awareness there will be few lessons for you. You will be more likely to smooth it all over, dress it up and put a bow on it, choosing armour or a persona to step into. Failure gives us a window into transformation. It asks much of us and in return it gives back growth, knowledge and learning. Failure changes you — often for the better.

So that’s my list of how to really learn from failure. No checklists, life hacks or easy solutions. Failure sucks, and failure is a gift. Both those things are true.