It’s all fine and good to say learn from your failures, but how? First you need to acknowledge that they will happen. Especially right now in the current economy. Rita McGrath notes: Despite widespread recognition that challenging times place unpredictable demands on people and businesses, I still run across many managers who would prefer to avoid the logical conclusion that stems from this: failure is a lot more common in highly uncertain environments than it is in better-understood situations. Then you plan for failure. Sim Sitkin talks about intelligent failure in his article “Learning through failure: The strategy of small losses.” Intelligent failure? Yep. Essentially planning your projects to be certain that you will learn something from them succeed or fail. What do intelligent failures look like? They are carefully planned, so that when things go wrong you know why They are genuinely uncertain, so the outcome cannot be known ahead of time They are modest in scale, so that a catastrophe does not result They are managed quickly, so that not too much time elapses between outcome and interpretation Something about what is learned is familiar enough to inform other parts of the business. McGrath adds two more in her article Are You Squandering
Change
Two Questions That Can Change Your Life From Daniel Pink
Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo. What’s my sentence? In one sentence state what lasting impression you want to leave on the world. For day to day motivation - Was I better today than yesterday? Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend
Pivot Points For Change: Libraries And Librarians
The fabulous Buffy Hamilton gave her Pivot Points of Change presentation at my library’s Staff Day last week. The points were inspired by post from Seth Godin in which he states changing everything is too difficult. Buffy applied this to libraries and librarians for the 9 pivot points of change. This is a slightly modified version of her original 9 pivot points of change for school librarians. Instead of thinking you can only participate in face to face conferences, consider how you can participate virtually Keep your traditional means of connecting with patrons and colleagues, but innovate at every possible touch point through social media and social networking Keep reading your print journals, but use a feed aggregator or information portal to access and organize your favorite blogs, journals, podcasts, youtube videos, and twitter rss feeds to stay on the cutting edge Keep networking with colleagues face to face, but cultivate a personal learning network to broaden your PLN (Personal Learning Network) to include librarians and other professionals from around the world who can inform your thinking, practice, and philosophy Keep your traditional productivity tools, but use cloud computing to encourage collaboration and information sharing Continue sharing your library program goals and reports through
Want Innovation? Get Out of the Way
We hear a lot about innovation and change these days. Everyone is talking about it, every is doing it, or at least trying to. There’s a problem though, change and innovation require more than lip service. Declaring that you are innovative does not make it so. You know what I’m talking about, someone reads an article, attends a presentation, has a conversation over coffee and comes back to work and says – we’re going to be innovative! Maybe there are even a few committees put together. But then what? Nothing. The committees quit meeting and things go back to the way they were. Maybe one or two people are still trying, but no one is listening. You know why? Because innovation doesn’t happen by committee or decree. Organizations do not innovate. People innovate. Inspired people. Fascinated people. Creative people. Committed people. That’s where innovation begins. On the inside. The organization’s role — just like the individual manager’s role — is to get out of the way. And while this “getting out of the way” will undoubtedly include the effort to formulate supportive systems, processes, and protocols, it is important to remember that systems, processes, and protocols are never the answer. - Mitch
How to Learn From Failure
So often when talking about innovation or change we hear someone say don’t be afraid to fail. That is harder than it sounds, I mean really; who wants to fail? Who wants to stand up in front of a group, no matter how big or how small and admit they were wrong. I know some people would admit they were wrong, but no one wants to be wrong. Part of the problem is failure is seen as a waste of time, of money or other resources. But we can learn a lot from failure as Jonah Lehrer writes Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up Too often, we assume that a failed experiment is a wasted effort. But not all anomalies are useless. Here’s how to make the most of them Check Your Assumptions - Ask yourself why this result feels like a failure. What theory does it contradict? Maybe the hypothesis failed, not the experiment. Seek Out the Ignorant - Talk to people who are unfamiliar with your experiment. Explaining your work in simple terms may help you see it in a new light. Encourage Diversity - If everyone working on a problem speaks the same language, then everyone has the same set
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