Learning From Failure

Never let an incident got to waste

The notion of embracing failure in terms of blameless postmortems, pre-mortems, failure workshops, and even as a way to drive innovation has been a topic of this newsletter several times. What I haven’t covered is how to extract lessons from a failure, which is an extreme form of embracing failure. As we all know, failures happen. We have all experienced times when we failed personally, on a test or in a role, and we have failed as a team, whether it be a sports team or business team. Even though we can learn from these situations, ideally we’d like to avoid them. Trying to prevent failure through the use of a pre-mortem or failure workshop where the team really focuses on how things could go wrong and then identify strategies to prevent them is a great way to embrace failure and not be afraid to talk about this common occurrence. Despite our best efforts, however, sometimes we are going to have failures. Conducting a blameless postmortem is an excellent way to ensure folks aren’t hiding failures or deflecting, both of which are terribly unhealthy for an organization. But, we can go further. A good friend of mine used to say, “never let an incident go to waste.” What they meant by that was that we need to take lessons from these incidents in order to prevent them from happening again. When an incident occurs, we can not only conduct a blameless postmortem but we can also identify lessons that we learned from this failure. From these lessons we can create action items such as disseminating this valuable information, make changes in our code, architecture, or processes to prevent this from recurring, etc. 

Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian statesman and diplomat, supposedly said, “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” While I don’t agree that we are fools if we learn from our own mistakes, I do agree that it is wise to learn from others as much as possible. Which brings to mind the proverb that was popularized by Oscar Wilde goes, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” There are a lot of very smart folks out there working on difficult problems and at the cutting edge of innovation in many disciplines. I and most teams that I’ve worked with are not on that edge. When this is the case, it is much wiser to learn and even imitate what they have done. This doesn’t mean to blatantly copy some other marketplace or ecommerce site’s design or functionality because all of our customer bases and their journeys are different. But their work can be an excellent starting point for us to begin from. This often saves teams weeks, quarters, or even years. This same philosophy exists for failures. We can and should absolutely learn from our own mistakes but we should also learn from others. 

The practice of learning from others' mistakes and successes is deeply ingrained in various fields. A notable example of this is how Knight Capital shared details of a software glitch in 2012 that cost them over $440 million in just 45 minutes. The fallout from this was enormous. Knight Capital Group had to sell itself to another firm at a discounted price, several executives were fired, and chaos in the financial industry ensued. This led to calls for more regulation and oversight of automated trading systems. Such openness not only propels the industry forward but also helps in fostering a culture of shared learning and improvement.

In a similar vein, the healthcare sector often employs Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences as a platform for learning from medical errors and adverse events. These conferences provide a blame-free environment where professionals can dissect what went wrong and how to prevent similar occurrences in the future. This last point being key, they want to share how to prevent similar occurrences from happening again. While the stakes in healthcare are often higher, the principle remains applicable across domains: an open, blame-free discussion of failures fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

The education sector too has its share of learning from failures and others' experiences. A case in point is the "Failure Resume" exercise proposed by Professor Johannes Haushofer of Princeton University, where individuals list their career lows rather than highs. This exercise not only helps in personal reflection but also in showcasing the reality of failure to others, thus reducing the stigma associated with it. In a similar vein Bessemer Venture Partners, one the country’s oldest venture capital firms, an “Anti-Portfolio,” basically a Failure Resume for its partners. While normalizing failure is a good thing since we all experience it, the lessons that the venture partners and students gain from producing these resumes and reports are probably the most valuable part of the exercise.

In the corporate arena, several organizations have taken strides in institutionalizing the learning-from-failure concept. For instance, Tata Group, a multinational conglomerate, hosts an annual “Dare to Try” award celebrating attempts at innovative solutions, even if they result in failure. Similarly, organizations like Google have robust postmortem cultures where teams are encouraged to document and share their failures openly, fostering a culture of shared learning and resilience.

Yet, it’s not only about learning from failures but also about how these lessons are applied. Actionable insights gleaned from past failures can be the catalyst for process improvements. For instance, after the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) released a multi-volume report on how the shuttle was destroyed, and what led to it. The CAIB produced a damning assessment of the culture at NASA that had led to the foam problem and other safety issues being minimized over the years. The report stated, "Cultural traits and organizational practices detrimental to safety were allowed to develop, reliance on past success as a substitute for sound engineering practices.” The renowned historian Arnold Toynbee famously quipped, “Nothing fails like success when you rely on it too much.” All of these lessons that were learned led to NASA undergoing a significant cultural and procedural overhaul to foster better communication and error reporting, thereby aiming to prevent such catastrophes in the future. 

The journey towards cultivating a culture that thrives on learning from failures is a multifaceted endeavor. The concepts of blameless postmortems, pre-mortems, and failure workshops are central to this journey. Pre-mortems and failure workshops are proactive measures aimed at foreseeing potential failures before they occur. Pre-mortems, in particular, encourage teams to envision what could go wrong before embarking on a project, thus enabling them to devise strategies to mitigate or avoid these pitfalls. This forward-looking approach not only helps in minimizing the occurrence of failures but also in preparing teams on how to effectively respond when failures do occur. The anticipation of potential challenges and the preparedness to tackle them head-on significantly contributes to fostering a resilient organizational culture.

Failure workshops take this a step further by creating a safe space for individuals and teams to share their experiences with failures, discuss the lessons learned, and explore how these lessons can be leveraged to drive innovation and improvement. These workshops can be seen as a melting pot of insights gleaned from both personal and collective failures, making them a rich source of learning and a catalyst for driving a culture of continuous improvement.

Once a failure or incident has occurred, blameless postmortems provide a structured platform for dissecting failures in a non-judgmental environment. This enables teams to delve into the root causes of failures without the fear of retribution, thereby promoting a culture of openness and continual learning.

Furthermore, the ability to not only learn from our own mistakes but also from the missteps of others is a hallmark of a mature learning culture. As we navigate through the complex landscapes of our respective fields, having a framework that not only embraces failure but actively seeks to learn from it is invaluable. This iterative process of experiencing, learning, and evolving is what propels organizations towards achieving excellence and innovation.

The integration of these practices - blameless postmortems, pre-mortems, and failure workshops, alongside the willingness to learn from not only our failures but from others’ failures as well, creates a robust ecosystem for organizational learning and growth. By doing so, we are not merely reacting to failures but are strategically positioning ourselves to leverage failures as opportunities for learning and improvement. This proactive approach towards failure is what will differentiate the trailblazers from the rest in the ever-evolving competitive landscapes of today’s world.