Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/856948
W EEKLY EDITION AUG 2, 2017 Fail Is a Four - Letter Word … But Should It Be? ...continued Adapted from an article by Lia DiBello, President and CEO of Workplace Technologies Research Inc. Perhaps a better understanding of "failure" and its role in cognition and learning will help. What is failure f rom the brain's point of view? At its core, failure is really nothing more than an unexpected result . It can feel unpleasant or painful but only markedly so when the unexpected outcome is tied to other consequences. When there are no painful consequences, it's engaging and interesting. Because the brain doesn't like to have flawed theories, it also leads automatically to corrections and refinements. • Trial and error is how we learn; we can't avoid it. • Feedback that shows us the error in our thinking works best when it's immediate. • Learning from trial and error does not require conscious awareness; engaging in activity that exposes us to the mis - matches in our thinking will result in learning, even if that was not our intention. The instinct to explo re our environment and test our theories about cause and effect is something we are born with and a feature of our way of thinking. It's what makes puzzles and games fun, mystery novels absorbing and the reason we take pleasure in challenging work and avoc ations. It is very deep in our DNA; anyone who has taken care of small children knows that one way to distract a distressed child is to give her something unexpected to figure out, something novel and interesting with an unexpected result, such a toy with a surprise inside or a jack in the box. This drive to iteratively explore, test theories and construct an understanding of our world is instinctive and is the primary mechanism underlying learning. It leads to learning and in depth understanding. Further, learning is accelerated if the cycles of trial and error are increased. Controlled failure prevents catastrophes. Catastrophic errors in business are the result of decisions made with flawed theories of how things work, or how things work "now" when the world of business changes. Catastrophes are painful and the risks are real, but mostly they do not have to happen. If we build trial and error in along the way we have the opportunity to find flaws in our thinking while they are still "interesting" and no t catastrophic. The key to this is constructing ways to know when our theory has problems before there is a catastrophe. • Whenever approaching an issue, such as a marketing plan or a strategy for your business, assume that you have a lot of flaws in your t hinking. • Assume that established truth is probably not true either. • Design a set of questions or metrics that will uncover the flaws. Design trial and error into your work that is daily and granular. • Look for early signs that you are wrong. Don't ignore them; make corrections • Treat the corrected approach the same way; assume you are missing something. P AGE 10 CONTINUED ON PAGE 1 1