Fail, to fail, failure, failed. The root of these always radiates a negative connotation.
During this past weeks Clinton Global Initiative, Alexander Grashow, the Founder and CEO of The Adaptist, The GIIFT, and "Can we fail faster, bigger, and better for greater impact?" breakout session moderator brings life to the what failure should mean and challenges the world to utilize, not hide from failure.
Grashow playfully points out that when assembling the panel for this discussion it was near impossible to find an American to join and discuss failures, interesting.
A lesson in failure: Alexander Grashow set out to end poverty in several third world countries, spending millions of dollars sourced from partners with similar goals. As they continued to dump funding into their efforts, their train to change was derailed when they were told that their efforts may very well be setting the community back further than where they started.
Considering all they had done, Grashow offers "How can we make sense of that"?
The conclusion he comes to are that in life there are two types of failures, dumb failures and smart failures.
Smart failures are what fuel progression. With smart failures, we learn from our mistakes publicly, not privately. By increasing our accountability, measurement and transparency (as they have learned to do), mistakes or "failures" that are made become learning experiences and aids in future endeavors. Smart failures allow society to "fail forward", the next best thing to success.
While on the other hand, dumb failures are exactly the opposite. By hiding, or being ashamed of our non-successes we are erasing an important part to every trial and error experiment, knowing and learning from what did not bring success.
Grashow offers that what the world needs, is a different kind of conversation about failure.
The first speaker for this breakout session was Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, the President of the Republic of Iceland. If anyone has reaped the benefits of utilizing failures, it is Iceland.
6 Years ago, Iceland was hit with a traumatic financial crisis during which their financial sector (banks etc) dove into bankruptcy. Throughout the initial wave of economic decline and failure, President Grimsson did something extraordinary, he turned against the prevailing system on how crisis should be handled and looked to democracy in order to function and make fiscal decisions. This really allowed the people to oversee how the situation would be handled and also allowed them to better understand why and how the situation would get better.
Iceland agreed to let the banks slip into bankruptcy and not bail them out. By allowing the banks to fall into bankruptcy a diamond emerged from the rough of the situation. Since the banks had become so "high tech", requiring workers in the field of engineering, computer science, and many other technical skill sets, the decline of banks led to an incline of skills on the job market. Looking desperately for work, these men and women joined other job fields and provided much necessary talent and expertise to the sectors that were previously unable to grow. The result? A boom in innovation, progression, and collaboration. The appeal of the financial district (money) had imprisoned Icelands more skilled workers from working in sectors that really needed their talent. The result of this all has lead to great success over the past six years, leaving Iceland as President Grimmson has said, in a better state than where they were before the crisis started.
If there is one lesson to be learned from the situation in Iceland, it is that there are alternatives, some that may even work better, than the prevailing system on how things should be handled. And although there are many alternatives, the one thing that needs to happen is a change in the way that we face possible failure. President Grimmson states that people are afraid to be recognized by their failures, so they often never leave their comfort zone in order to secure their status and sometimes even their elected positions. Without exploring where ideas can take us, bottling these notions and inspirations has prevented possible progression and meaningful reforms that may have result in a better system than what resides today.
In short, culture needs an adjustment. An adjustment where politicians are not be afraid to transform political society, but rather be willing and inspired to go to the world and attempt to make meaningful change without the fear of failure and without the fear of loosing their next election.
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