• The most valuable gift you can give your employees

    Posted on July 9th, 2009 by and currently 12 commenting.

    “The most valuable gift you can give your employees is permission to fail.”

    When my good friend Joshua Blankenship said that to me during my last term at university I didn’t fully understand what he meant, and to be honest, it didn’t settle well in my brain at first hearing.

    I think part of my problem was that our society views failure primarily as a negative concept. Think about it – if you reflect on your education from kindergarten to university, most students have been taught through experience that the worst thing you could do as a student is fail. The famous red “F” with a circle around it at the top of your paper. I don’t think anyone is denying that earning high marks is generally a good thing and poor performance bears negative consequences, but what if our society’s view of failure is wrong? What if the red “F” is actually a healthy thing sometimes?

    When Brains on Fire threw me a life preserver and hoisted me on to their pirate ship I was given the privilege of being research-crew hand to Dr. Justine Foo. I quickly learned that when you step onto their deck there is no time wasted: before the wet of the ocean had left my clothes I found ropes in my hand and hardworking pirates at my shoulders (several of whom sported appropriately-inked buccaneer tattoos). Within the first few weeks Justine asked me to perform research and write a report for a national client. Though capable, I was green (still am), and in the fear of failure I learned so well through education, I began to ask her questions every 10 minutes about the project and what I should do (remember that Justine?). After a few interruptions, she sat me down and gave me some of the best advice I have ever received: “Eric, we didn’t hire you so that you would ask me a thousand questions and be unsure about what you are doing. We hired you to produce amazing work. And you are fully capable of doing that. So, if you have a legitimate question, ask me. If not, just produce amazing work. And if you get it wrong, I’ll show you where, why and how to fix it, and you’ll grow.”

    Freedom.

    The freedom to create my best work was born out of granted freedom to fail in my attempt. And it’s all over the place at Brains on Fire. The designers here create some of the most ridiculously awesome work around and I’m convinced it’s because they know they have the freedom to take daring risks with their art.

    Freedom. Not cavalier freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom to give our clients the best (and most effective) work they have ever seen.

    I have found that my greatest achievements are possible because my greatest failures are possible. So, you were right Joshua. I understand what you meant a lot better now.

  • http://www.theviralgarden.com Mack Collier

    This post dovetails nicely with a TED talk I recently saw from Sir Ken Robinson. He was talking about how creative kids are, and his contention was that many kids are ‘educated’ out of their creativity, by being told that they can’t be wrong. He said that even when kids don’t know the right answer, that they will ‘have a go’ anyway. But that as they grow up, failure becomes stigmatized and something to be avoided at all costs.

    He claims this kills creativity. He said that ‘If you’re not afraid to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.’ He’s right. And so are you with this post.

  • http://www.brainsonfire.com/people.aspx?id=11,15 Eric Dodds

    Mack,

    You are right on – Sir Ken Robinson’s discussion of education on TED is wonderful (I particularly enjoy the short history lesson of how current education grew out of the industrial revolution – very interesting context for our present system). His book, “The Element”, dives deeper into the issues and research discussed in his lecture – I recommend it.

    Kids seem so much more willing to take risk than we are as adults. So many rich lessons there.

    You can check the video out here.

  • http://www.socialmissfit.com Nicole Hamilton

    Mack and Eric, as a young professional myself I have found that this philosophy/approach is truly remarkable and effective. This approach has enabled me to find comfort and confidence in my own capabilities and creativity. There is an interesting conversation taking place over at Communications Catalyst, @dmullen’s blog, about a young intern who plagiarized her work. I would be interested to hear your take on this “failure/mistake” in relation to your theory above. Although it has worked well for me, does this mean it is the best approach to use with every individual? If so, how can we continue to LEARN from our failures instead of focus on the actual failure itself? The real value in this approach, is taking away the lesson learned and using it to become better at what we do and in our abilities. However, on the flip side, there are some mistakes/failures that are not, and will never be ok, in my mind. I would love your insight…

  • http://www.ericdodds.com Eric Dodds

    Nicole,

    Very intriguing conversation happening around the article you mentioned – thanks for pointing it out. Many questions that the post raised in my mind were mentioned in the (mountain of) comments. Though some details are available on the situation, not all are, and I would tend to trust the (sometimes opposing) viewpoints of professionals in that specific industry, many of whom commented on the post.

    I think you are absolutely right – the relevance is the learning process, which we know very little about in that situation. I do know that failure is rarely comfortable, but the benefits one gleans from it as they grow can be invaluable. I truly hope that the Editor(s) provided a positive learning experience for the intern amidst the consequences of a serious mistake.

    I’d love to know your thoughts on other examples of “…mistakes/failures that are not, and will never be ok…” I am looking at this through the perspective of a creative firm, and though the concept of freedom to fail is widely applicable, it’s specific implementation varies greatly across disciplines.

    Thanks for the great points and though provoking questions!

  • http://www.ericdodds.com Eric Dodds

    Also, Steven Lyons makes a great comment on a related article, noting the need for companies to define the difference between failures and screw-ups.

  • http://www.socialmissfit.com Nicole Hamilton

    Eric, I took a look at Steve’s comment and I agree, he makes a great point here as well (distinguishing between failures and screw-ups). There is a difference, and I think a good leader should be able to distinguish between the two. There has been a lot of chatter lately around failure….check out this article published in the HBR a few days ago: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/bregman/2009/07/why-you-need-to-fail.html?cm_re=homepage-061609-_-secondary-2-_-headline.

  • Kathie

    Eric – great post. As a full believer in mentoring, you have to hire people with the right skill set and give the space to try new and amazing things. It becomes the leaders responsibility to make sure that the end product is something that meets the expectation of the client or goal set by the company/project/etc. Failure or mistakes is how we learn everyday and we would all be hard pressed to say that we haven’t made major mistakes along the way in our careers and learned from them. They made us smarter, stronger and more compassionate for the next group of pirates coming on the ship.

  • http://www.askthewealthsquad.com/blog/ Scott Lovingood

    Failure is often an unappreciated path to success. Edison failed to make a light bulb many many times. Many great business people failed to have a profitable company and had to start over.

    Failure is just a stepping stone to success. The key is not stopping.

    One comment that mentioned failures that are not acceptable. A failure caused by sheer negligence, lack of effort, violation of ethics or moral or lack of caring are some examples of this. If you do your best and the results aren’t what you wanted (what we commonly refer to as failure). Bernie Madoff failed.

    Giving our people freedom to fail should be taken along wtih the same concept that Steve Farber published in Greater Than Yourself. Our kids learn to walk by falling a lot. We learn to be great by failing.

    Help the people around you or under you become Greater than you by allowing them to fail and picking them up and dusting them off. It’s one of the ways our country has become so great.

  • http://www.brainsonfire.com/people.aspx?id=11,15 Eric Dodds

    Well said, Scott.

  • Chad

    That’s what it boils down to. Treating your employees like adults and not infants.

  • http://www.kidsfireaware.org/ Logan

    Hello,
    You are so right about this!!
    Thanks for bringing it out!!

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