Failing good, part II

Failure makes us use our imaginations, our creativity, our intelligence to determine what went wrong and make corrections. It can give us crucial feedback that helps us cultivate better attempts at succeeding not only in the area where we failed, but in other areas as well. When we refuse to learn from failures, blame others or blame the circumstances surrounding us, the failure becomes truly futile and immensely frustrating. There are surely times when failure is a result of forces out of our control, but that doesn’t mean the opportunity to learn something from it is lost. It's when we use failures to learn that they become a useful tool for growth.

Barry LaBov

LABOV Marketing Communications and Training

www.labov.com

Failing good, part I

Everyone fails at one time or another. Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts three times. The Beatles were dropped by their record label when first starting out and told they had no future in show business. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Hard to believe these megastars ever had a failure in their lives, but it happens to us all—and we don’t like it. Not in work, not in our personal lives. So hearing that failure can be a good thing sounds bogus…but it has validity.

Oftentimes we fail when we try something the first time. Hitting a baseball on the first pitch, learning to ride a bike, selling a new product to a customer. So knowing that fact, failure should be no big deal, right? Reality is that it’s difficult to realize in the moment that failure is what can lead to success. The sting of failure can take over. But without failing, we would never be driven to reassess how we approach things or learn how to do them better. Improvement would be obsolete and so would we. 

Barry LaBov

LABOV Marketing Communications and Training

www.labov.com

The magic of collective creativity

Several years ago, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull shared his thoughts on how the studio fosters creativity and how, when creating an original product, the initial idea is not the most important element. It is, in fact, the people and culture. As Catmull puts it, it is about preserving the “confluence of forces necessary to create magic.”

That includes the concept that creativity is not a solo act or a single idea, but rather several people from different disciplines working together to solve challenges and creating more than just an initial idea but many other ideas that support it. In the case of a movie, that can be tens of thousands of ideas from hundreds of people. For collective creativity to work, there must be an environment where people support one another. Once you reach that level, you have the foundation for some of the most inspiring creativity.

Barry LaBov

LABOV Marketing Communications and Training

www.labov.com