Social Network for RSA Fellows

Questions on Failure

Do these questions capture the essence of failure, and how would YOU answer them?

Question 1: Can you give me an example of your experience of failure?

Question 2: How did you respond to the failure in the example given?

Question 3: How did you learn from the failure and how has it helped you?

Question 4: While you’ve experienced failure, you are clearly not a failure, why do you think this is?

Question 5: If you could recommend one thing to other people facing a similar situation to your example, what would it be?

Question 6: Which of your contacts would you recommend we interview next?

Let's get started

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on January 31, 2010 at 17:03

Wow Tessy that's a brilliantly rich response. Thank you. I agree that the 'slowly and collaboratively' approach to project development yields very strong contributions. The Glory of Failure project is benefiting from that I think. Watch this space for news about 'The Failure Files'.

I'll be around in the library tomorrow afternoon, between the lunchtime lecture and the London City Network meetup in the evening. I'd be happy to talk to anyone about the Glory of Failure project... or you can follow me on Twitter @commutiny

Permalink Reply by Susan Jones on January 31, 2010 at 17:03

I'd suggest Clare Cooper of www.missionmodelsmoney.org.uk/ who although I've only met once, found her ideas and approaches inspiring.

Permalink Reply by Tessy Britton on January 31, 2010 at 18:59

@Susan Nothing more fun than talking about messing up! Or not knowing what will be said next ... :)

The diverted thing: not sure it is lateral thinking exactly. But I did used to confuse it with a lack of perseverance - but now think that 'dogged determination' or 'grit' , can make you insensitive to signals to actually just stop doing what isn't working.

Your comments on your post about loss of identity when you stop practising really resonated with me. That sounds really tough. Some one from the university called a few evening's ago with a job survey and although quite amusing at the time, we struggled to complete her boxes to any satisfaction - I think I ended up with 'project developer' ..... that sounds interesting doesn't it?

@Roxanne - Thanks for your reply. Look forward to seeing Failure Files :)

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on February 12, 2010 at 17:47

Given that this page is public (searchable by google), I ask if we may copy some of the responses below on to our soon-to-be-launched Glory of Failure project blog? We'd be happy to remove personal info on that platform but you should be aware that most discussions on ning are easily found by your fans!

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on March 3, 2010 at 14:53

Yes Maureen, that does make me happy. Can we persuade you to join the Education theme team?

Maureen Wolloshin said:

You will be happy to hear that I have been using the words 'glorious' and 'failure' in the same sentence in my classroom for the last couple of weeks with joyous, happy, laughter filled and risk taking results-leading to greater success.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Jewell on March 4, 2010 at 10:57

Hi Maureen,

I think Roxanne is referring to the Education theme for the GoF campaign, which is a subset of this work which links to wider RSA activity, one of which is the Education forum on Ning. A bit confusing, but essentially the Education forum is about general education issues (which can include failure), whereas our education theme with GoF is about the upstream influences on failure that are the product of 'education', either formal or informal and at any stage in a person's life.

I am the lead for the Education Theme of the Glory of Failure and if you are interested (which it seems you are) in this kind of issue, please come along to one of our face-to-face meetings, the symposium planned for later this year, or one of our web events. Most o these are currently on the Ning events section of the site.

Or e-mail direct. I have provided some suggestions in a different thread in this group as to how people can get involved, no matter what their time commitment. And since the work is ongoingly informed and influenced by its members, you have an opportunity to shape the agenda.

Out of interest, the other GoF themes are:

Individual Life Events (ILE) - Chris Knell leading
Organisations - Roxanne Persaud leading
Culture/Society - Mitchell Sava leading
International - pending assignment of lead
'The Failure Files' - our first book (editor: David Hillson) and blog (editor: Roxanne)

We also have the core group which overseas and co-ordinates the work across all themes of the campaign and is currently working on planning a colloquium for later this year.

Hope that clarifies things, but get in touch/post replies if you need further information. It is useful to put the response in the discussion here so people can benefit from the questions and answers.

Thanks for your posting, it was really interesting and I hope prompts further discussion amongst fellows.

Maureen Wolloshin said:

hello Roxanne-I am starting to lose track of what I'm contributing to and when! I think I am a member of the education group....

Roxanne Persaud said:
Yes Maureen, that does make me happy. Can we persuade you to join the Education theme team?

Maureen Wolloshin said:
You will be happy to hear that I have been using the words 'glorious' and 'failure' in the same sentence in my classroom for the last couple of weeks with joyous, happy, laughter filled and risk taking results-leading to greater success.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Jewell on March 4, 2010 at 11:10

The first one is 6pm in North London this evening! Sorry for no notice.

We cycle the events, so you have:

Core meeting
Education
Culture
Organisations
ILE
International
then back to core again

In fact, all meetings have core discussion, it's just the focus. Things are a bit more strategic and bigger level evaluative for the overall project/theme at designated meetings and more operational elements of each at the others. And we look at links between the different threads in core more.

I will set up a web meeting specifically for education people if you are interested. We hold it in Ning chat. And if you send me your e-mail address through the messaging system here, I'll link you into the project wiki so you can see the inner workings of the project and the stuff I have set out for the education theme (entirely open to modification depending on your thoughts). All of that applies to anyone who reads this too.

Also, don't forget the education symposium. Have a look on that discussion thread for this group to find out more. And Roxanne is planning a quiz for the social side of the work, which means you can meet and discuss common interests. Roxanne, when is that?

Maureen Wolloshin said:

great.Thanks Jonathan. I would like to be part of the Education Theme Team-let me know when the face to face events are happening.

Jonathan Jewell said:
Hi Maureen,

I think Roxanne is referring to the Education theme for the GoF campaign, which is a subset of this work which links to wider RSA activity, one of which is the Education forum on Ning. A bit confusing, but essentially the Education forum is about general education issues (which can include failure), whereas our education theme with GoF is about the upstream influences on failure that are the product of 'education', either formal or informal and at any stage in a person's life.

I am the lead for the Education Theme of the Glory of Failure and if you are interested (which it seems you are) in this kind of issue, please come along to one of our face-to-face meetings, the symposium planned for later this year, or one of our web events. Most o these are currently on the Ning events section of the site.

Or e-mail direct. I have provided some suggestions in a different thread in this group as to how people can get involved, no matter what their time commitment. And since the work is ongoingly informed and influenced by its members, you have an opportunity to shape the agenda.

Out of interest, the other GoF themes are:

Individual Life Events (ILE) - Chris Knell leading
Organisations - Roxanne Persaud leading
Culture/Society - Mitchell Sava leading
International - pending assignment of lead
'The Failure Files' - our first book (editor: David Hillson) and blog (editor: Roxanne)

We also have the core group which overseas and co-ordinates the work across all themes of the campaign and is currently working on planning a colloquium for later this year.

Hope that clarifies things, but get in touch/post replies if you need further information. It is useful to put the response in the discussion here so people can benefit from the questions and answers.

Thanks for your posting, it was really interesting and I hope prompts further discussion amongst fellows.

Maureen Wolloshin said:
hello Roxanne-I am starting to lose track of what I'm contributing to and when! I think I am a member of the education group....

Roxanne Persaud said:
Yes Maureen, that does make me happy. Can we persuade you to join the Education theme team?

Maureen Wolloshin said:
You will be happy to hear that I have been using the words 'glorious' and 'failure' in the same sentence in my classroom for the last couple of weeks with joyous, happy, laughter filled and risk taking results-leading to greater success.

Permalink Reply by Gill Kelley on March 5, 2010 at 8:42

Hi Jonathan

These questions have provided me with more food for thought than any for a long time. I am fairly self-critical, and reflective, but struggled to think in terms of 'failure'. I’m told by my colleagues that I am a ‘glass half full’ sort of person and there is a danger that I have failed many times but haven’t recognised it! I decided last year to ‘go part-time’ – I moved to France to enjoy a different pace of life but was really not giving myself a chance to do so, as I just continued to work... Perhaps I should have been alerted to this earlier when colleagues laughed and said that they would believe it when they saw it happen?

I failed to slow down.

That might seem a bit flippant; I had only failed myself and my partner really – so my first reaction (when he finally said a little sarcastically ‘I don’t know how you ever found the time to work full-time ...........’) was to start to set up an argument for staying full time – e.g. The choice is six years part-time or three years full time – I could do three years full-time instead, and then relax and enjoy the life-style.

However, there is a more serious side when you consider work-life balance - there is my extended family - grown up children, grandchildren - and I also intended to get more involved with projects at RSA. I remembered that when I first set up self-employed I suffered for a while from my failure to say no to work offers. I resolved this with a complex system of fee structure and colour coding and eventually got things under control.

I need to use this again to achieve this new goal - and I think this is where the learning comes in. If you don't set clear goals then you can't fail can you? This is where I failed - a clear goal to 'slow down' and enjoy a different side of life would have helped, so that's the way forward.

PS - my passion is education, so maybe that is my theme as well.

Gill

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on March 5, 2010 at 9:06

Gill this is a very interesting story, thanks for sharing. I don't think you're being flippant. One of the compelling things about the Glory of Failure is that we can find a way into the work through personal or professional interests (and usually both).

I wonder if you are being a little hard on yourself? I've got several goals which are pretty vague and can be expressed in different ways. "Live Happily" could be one though I think more in terms of aligning myself with values. I've probably 'failed' a zillion times and not recognised it - I'm probably a 'glass brimming over' kind of person. "Slow down" sounds hard to me but "enjoy a different side of life" is a goal I recognise - and it's far from SMART! One of the aspects of failure we should explore is the extent to which people recognise it in different contexts, and of course, how they respond.

The discussions here from Fellows are, for me, a great encouragement for the future of GoF. The themes we identified are a handy way of making things feel manageable so we can get some outputs & outcomes, but the overarching aim is to stimulate debate and reflection and lift the taboo of failure in society.

Everyone who reads and posts here is contributing to that.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Jewell on March 16, 2010 at 7:51

Yes, through debate, reflection and other means - that you are both reading about and contributing to - the central goal of this campaign is to break the taboo around failure. By taboo, we are not necessarily thinking that we can't or don't say the word at the moment, but that when people do at the moment it is often seen as wholly pejorative, without recognition of a counter-balancing 'up-side'. Failure is more readily used to criticise someone else than to admit to oneself publicly or even personally.

It is our belief that addressing this issue needs to take place at different levels, of society and culture, organisations and the individual and working upstream (as well as in the present) in the education system.

There is a lot of discussion around failure already, but it is not necessarily of the most productive kind. The success of the campaign will see a change in the types of conversation people have, how debates are had and how people work with the products of their reflection. I hope that being better able to accept failure as a natural feature of life is the first step towards getting the most out of it and not being set back by it. I also think that as society's attitudes change, there the context in which these conversations are happening will be a better environment to respond to failure within.

Jonathan

Roxanne Persaud said:

Gill this is a very interesting story, thanks for sharing. I don't think you're being flippant. One of the compelling things about the Glory of Failure is that we can find a way into the work through personal or professional interests (and usually both).
I wonder if you are being a little hard on yourself? I've got several goals which are pretty vague and can be expressed in different ways. "Live Happily" could be one though I think more in terms of aligning myself with values. I've probably 'failed' a zillion times and not recognised it - I'm probably a 'glass brimming over' kind of person. "Slow down" sounds hard to me but "enjoy a different side of life" is a goal I recognise - and it's far from SMART! One of the aspects of failure we should explore is the extent to which people recognise it in different contexts, and of course, how they respond.
The discussions here from Fellows are, for me, a great encouragement for the future of GoF. The themes we identified are a handy way of making things feel manageable so we can get some outputs & outcomes, but the overarching aim is to stimulate debate and reflection and lift the taboo of failure in society.

Everyone who reads and posts here is contributing to that.

Permalink Reply by Jane Mason on June 4, 2010 at 16:28

Question 1: Can you give me an example of your experience of failure? Working on a consulting project with a big bank that I knew was set up badly and realising indeed that we were going to fail. We failed. We failed to have even the smallest impact on the Board and on the company. Although they paid us, it was a total waste of money for them.

Question 2: How did you respond to the failure in the example given? Sulked. Cried. Got Angry. Talked to my coach who made me see that the situation was designed to fail and that we all failed, not just me. Got over it.

Question 3: How did you learn from the failure and how has it helped you? Helped me identify the six or so reasons a consulting project will fail no matter how hard anyone tries. Don't do consulting project that are set up badly. Exit early if you do. Confront the client earlier and more directly about their role in the failure.

Question 4: While you’ve experienced failure, you are clearly not a failure, why do you think this is? Good track record of success outweighs a single failure. Consulting is not my identity. There are many other things in my life and a setback in one thing is not a set back in my entire life. To that end, it is critical for people to have many different aspects to their lives.

Question 5: If you could recommend one thing to other people facing a similar situation to your example, what would it be? Talk to a coach and get some feed back about what they are doing and whether they can change anything. Gather friends around who can catch you and encourage you to new and better heights.