The art and science of failing well

"When I think about failure, there's three general sorts of responses that emerge from both the management literature and practice. The first one is what I call "the forgive and forget" approach. And the problem with "forgive and forget" is there's no accountability and there's no learning. The second approach is what I call the "Silicon Valley standard." This is remember, blame, stigmatize, ostracize and humiliate."

"And the problem with that is that when you humiliate people or put them down when they fail, then they're afraid to admit mistakes, and the whole world turns into a cover-your-ass sort of game, so no learning occurs. And the way that the most effective organizations-and in fact, if you look at research on hospitals that learn from medical mistakes-this is the mantra they sometimes use: it's to "forgive and remember.""

Failure is essential for learning and skill improvement; repeated mistakes enable people to get better. Individuals often conflate making a mistake with being a failure, which undermines admission and growth. Organizations commonly respond in three ways: forgive-and-forget, which eliminates accountability and learning; the Silicon Valley standard of remembering and blaming, which stigmatizes and induces fear, producing cover-your-ass behavior and blocking learning; and forgive-and-remember, which combines psychological safety with memory and accountability. Effective organizations forgive to allow admission and resilience, and remember to capture lessons from both individual and collective mistakes to improve systems and outcomes.

Read at Big Think