At my MBA graduation ceremony, the dean told this classic story about the benefit of learning from mistakes:
A group of MBA students are dining with a retired celebrity CEO. One asks him, “What distinguishes a successful executive?”
The CEO ponders the question for 10 seconds and answers, “Two words: Good decisions.”
The student isn’t satisfied and says, “But what does it take to make good decisions?”
The CEO furrows his brow and 20 seconds later replies, “One word: Experience.”
The student is exasperated at this point and blurts out, “Okay, but what’s it take to get experience?”
The CEO frowns and thinks for 30 excruciating seconds. Finally, he replies, “Two words: Bad decisions.”
A corollary to this belief in the power of mistakes is our assumption that others’ successes provide great insight. The self-help section at any bookstore (remember bookstores?) is full of books by high achievers like, say, Donald Trump. We buy these books hoping his path to greatness will illuminate our own path.
But what if we’ve got it backwards? As a culture do we exaggerate the benefits of our failures? And undervalue the power of our successes? And do we overestimate what the success of others can teach us, and downplay how instructive the failure of others can be.
Think about it. Did anyone ever learn anything useful from a Donald Trump self-help book? I read a couple of his titles. But Trump is so over-the-top wealthy, and his wealth is so intertwined with his over-the-top personality, that I can’t relate to him. There’s so much distance between his world and mine that I can’t learn from his experience.
Now, the irony is that we actually learn quite a lot from the failures of high achievers. Psychologist and author Richard Farson argued that the failure of those we emulate, “brings out something good in us…we know better how to empathize with the person who is suffering than we do with the person who is succeeding.”
Failure humanizes people. It brings them to our level, erasing the distance. Back in 1991, Trump’s Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy. He miscalculated, financing the casino with high-interest junk bonds just before a recession. When we see a successful guy like Donald Trump screw up, I think we learn something potentially useful, if only to step back and say, “Maybe I need to be careful with my own debt, or be more cautious and avoid foolish risks.”
The story of former Hewlett Packard CEO Mark Hurd’s downfall over expense report irregularities in 2010 reminds us to exercise judgment, even with the little stuff. Seeing a massive talent like Robin Williams defeated by clinical depression helps us appreciate our own mental health.
Just as the failures of others teach us more than their successes, our own successes teach us more than our failures. Neurological research bears this out. Scientists at MIT monitored primates’ brains while teaching them a specific task. When a primate succeeded, the researchers observed the monkey’s neurons respond – their brain physically changed in response to learning. When a primate failed at the task, however, there was virtually no change. Furthermore, once primates experienced success, they were more likely to continue improving their performance.
I was a late bloomer. I spent several years pursuing an academic career before realizing I was unsuited for it. Then I spent a couple years failing at one thing after another. Did I learn from those “bad decisions”? Yes, I suppose. But my breakthrough came at age 30 when I submitted a freelance article to a newspaper. It was accepted. Within two weeks I got hired. I was an instant success! Okay, it was a low-paying, low-status success. But what I learned in those two short weeks was transformational. I discovered what I should be doing in life -- and that success-driven insight led to a pretty good career.
Did Stephen King learn more from his 30 failed attempts to sell his first novel Carrie? Or from the 31st time when he sold it to a publisher and it became a hit?
My guess is that most high achievers can point to moments when they had an early success and realized, “Aha, I now see my path.” One of my favorite stories is how Goldman Sachs President and COO Gary Cohn went from an aluminum siding salesperson to an options trader thanks to a skill he discovered in one of the most successful cab rides in history. Read about it here.
So how do you use this insight about learning more from success than failure? I use it in two areas of my business:
Recruiting: When I review resumes, I look for one thing the person succeeded at. But – and this is an important “but” – I’m deeply skeptical. I smoke out imposters by grilling job candidates for granular detail on their claimed “successes.” What was their exact role? Did they have direct accountability? Who else was involved and who did what? When people truly succeeded at something, you won’t see hesitation or defensiveness. You’ll hear a story told with passion, confidence and nuance.
When people can run that gauntlet and convince you they actually succeeded at something, you’ve got a winner.
People development: It’s a cliché that we need to “get people to do what they’re good at.” In practice that’s not so easy. Job enlargement often happens organically, usually because people believe the more they do the more job security they have. Good leaders know the exact opposite is true. When people are in narrowly defined jobs that play to their strengths, when they excel at their work and achieve aggressive goals, they accumulate successes that enhance their careers and make them indispensable.
All this said, there’s no denying that people do learn from their failures. But here’s a thought: Maybe failure is really interesting to explore only after success has been achieved. Looking back on a successful life, or doing a post-mortem on an endeavor that ended well, incremental failures add texture and nuance to a winning story. But if you’re still not on top of the mountain, maybe it’s best to figure out what you’re really good at, then focus like a laser beam on creating a success you can call your own.
