Make Failure Your Teacher—Create a Culture of Experimentation, Not Perfection
One university ceramics instructor divided students into two groups. The 'quality' group had to submit just one pot for grading, aiming for perfection. The 'quantity' group had to churn out as many pots as possible—their grade depended solely on weight. At semester’s end, which group made better pots? Unexpectedly, the quantity group far outperformed on quality. Through repeated making, failing, and learning, they refined their skills. The quality group, paralyzed by planning and pressure, improved much less.
This insight, formalized through studies of deliberate practice and cognitive feedback loops, shows that experimentation and low-stakes failure build adaptive expertise. Teams that fear mistakes play it safe, iterating less and learning slowly. Teams with explicit permission to fail, where setbacks are recast as learning opportunities, not only innovate more but also report higher psychological safety and engagement.
It may run counter to your instincts—after all, most school and corporate systems reward 'getting it right' over 'trying frequently.' But businesses from technology startups to creative agencies have found that normalizing frequent, recoverable failure is crucial for long-term success. You may fail at dozens of small bets, but those informed experiments create the foundation for your major wins and resilient team culture.
Next team meeting, say out loud that failures and mishaps are a normal part of getting to good outcomes—especially early on. Plan multiple low-risk, quick experiments instead of one big, make-or-break project, knowing that every iteration adds to your team’s collective learning. After each attempt, even when it doesn’t go as planned, debrief together: what did we learn, and how does that shape our next step? By repeating this process, your team will get comfortable with both risk and reflection, developing innovative solutions no perfectionist approach could match. Try embracing small failures on your next goal.
What You'll Achieve
Internally: more creative confidence, less fear of judgment, and a higher willingness to seek out feedback and learn. Externally: more ideas tested, greater innovation, fewer catastrophic project failures, and higher team morale.
Develop Safe-to-Fail Experiments in Your Team
Explicitly state that failure is possible and welcome.
Open team discussions by affirming that mistakes are normal and part of the process, not punishable events.
Design multiple low-stakes iterations instead of chasing one 'right' answer.
Encourage quantity of attempts—a ceramics class that graded by weight produced better pots than one aiming for a single perfect piece. Translate this by running many fast experiments rather than one big bet.
Regularly reflect as a team on what’s been learned from failures.
Hold quick reviews after each experiment, asking how findings will shape future decisions.
Reflection Questions
- How do you and your team currently respond to failed experiments or ideas?
- What policies or attitudes make it harder to admit when things don’t work?
- How might you explicitly encourage small, safe failures in your work or home life?
- Which recent ‘failures’ actually taught you more than a straightforward success?
Personalization Tips
- In a coding bootcamp, celebrate trial-and-error debugging sessions instead of only perfect first submissions.
- At home, let each family member try their way of organizing a space, learning together from what works and what doesn’t.
- On a sports team, recognize each drill’s attempted new move, regardless of outcome.
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