Learn From Failure

When embracing failure as a learning tool, the process is often more valuable than the outcome.
“As long as you did the right thing to get there, and you learned what it was that caused the failure, you’re OK,” said Larry Israelite, vice president and manager of human resources development at Liberty Mutual Group. “When you don’t do the right legwork and you don’t do the right analysis, and you make an arbitrary decision and you fail, then your failure wasn’t in the outcome you achieved; [it] was in the process you went through that led you to that failure.”

Harvard’s Edmondson has a similar view. She said there are a variety of reasons people fail that are worthy of either blame or praise. The level of a failure is rooted not in the outcome, but the process.

William Kline, an HR consultant and former vice president of HR and chief learning officer at Delta Air Lines, said as long as the learning is properly assessed and captured, failure is still most likely the best learning tool CLOs have at their fingertips — if it’s not detrimental to the organization’s business.

Making sure those failures are measured, and not reckless, is the real challenge.

“For me, that’s the essence of learning,” Kline said. “I know that sounds trite, but I really do believe that.”