We’ve all heard the expression “fail faster”. Many organizations I’ve worked with ‘say’ that failing is not a problem, but, in reality, what they really believe is that ‘failure is not an option’. Because, as human beings, we can’t predict the future, fear of failure can prevent us from voicing our ideas and trying them out. To help people I’m coaching overcome this fear, I remind them that believing that we ‘know’ what the ‘right’ and ‘only’ outcome is at the outset is actually only an assumption. If we start out with an idea about where we want to go, and the realization that we don’t know exactly how to get there, we can simply ‘try’ things out to find out. That way we’re not failing. We’re simply experimenting and learning as we create our way to our destination.
