Research shows that talking about failure makes for happier, more productive workers and Oset Babur* has advice on how to go about it.
We’ve all flopped on a big presentation.
After weeks of careful preparation you feel ready.
The day comes and, for whatever reason, every joke seems to fall flat, you bumble through all your numbers and your technology seems to be working against you.
The blow to your self-worth can manifest in many ways and our bodies’ response to failure can even mimic that of physical pain.
Taking the time to reflect on and communicate about unwanted outcomes can go a long way in creating more congenial, trusting and ultimately productive workplaces.
After failing, publicly or privately, it can be nerve-racking to initiate a conversation about what happened with your co-workers or boss, particularly if you’re still in the early stages of your career.
Organisational psychologist, Tasha Eurich says almost everyone can benefit from sharing and hearing another perspective.
“It’s healthy to ask about what went wrong in a meeting. You have to engage other people in that process of learning,” Dr Eurich says.
“Having face-to-face conversations around failure can be especially effective in building stronger relationships among colleagues.”
In a new paper, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, Alison Wood Brooks says discussing failures can help to humanise the sharer by making them seem more approachable and relatable in the workplace.
“It also generally increased levels of so-called ‘benign envy’, which can motivate and drive employees to perform better,” Professor Brooks says.
However, she cautions that the enemy of benign envy is malicious envy — the type of envy others feel when we talk about our achievements much more often than our struggles.
“Projecting that image of perfection can be especially harmful for those in leadership positions who risk coming across as disingenuous, Professor Brooks said.
“On Instagram and Facebook, people post these curated, shiny, beautiful personas of themselves, which contributes to this general belief that other people don’t experience as many failures as we do.”
Ultimately, the researchers found that talking about failure — both during the fact and afterward — can help to cultivate closer relationships with colleagues.
Professor in Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, Amy Edmondson has studied three different kinds of failures: Preventable failure, complex failure and intelligent failure.
She says the latter two have the greatest potential to promote learning in the workplace.
“Complex failures occur when we have good knowledge about what needs to be done,” Professor Edmondson says.
“We have processes and protocols, but combinations of internal and external factors come together in a way to produce a failure outcome.”
She says it’s difficult to assign responsibility for complex failures, but staying vigilant about these kinds of mistakes can help improve existing processes.
Similarly, intelligent failure occurs when we’re working in areas in which we don’t have expertise or experience, or in areas that are uncharted in a broad, industry-wide sense.
“We might launch a new product that’s never been launched before, and it’s a failure. We should tell everybody,” Professor Edmondson says.
“When an intelligent failure is buried or goes undiscussed, others risk repeating the exact same mistakes.”
The result is increasingly inefficient organisations that replicate, instead of learn from, the same mistakes.
Even when you grow comfortable with the prospect of sharing your failures at work, it’s important to remember that not every organisation has a culture that will welcome or even tolerate this kind of openness.
That’s not to say employees can’t create ‘safe spaces’ among themselves to share their struggles.
Professor Edmondson encourages it, but factors like seniority are likely to impact how conversations about failure are received.
“If you’re having lunch with some of your peers, then revealing failure is a great strategy to induce levels of liking by reducing malicious envy,” she says.
Opening up about that presentation gone awry can be a gamble, but it’s one worth making as long as you’re making it intentionally.
Especially if you’re sick of getting left off the post-work happy hour email invitation.
*Oset Babur is a journalist who specialises in writing about culture and food. He can be contacted at www.osetbabur.com
A version of this article originally appeared in the New York Times.
