FAILURE: A how-to manual

Do what we like. Have faith. Ignore results. Repeat.

One of the things I am most alarmed about as a student of human nature is our species’ apparent inability to deal successfully with many of its most pressing problems and challenges (social, political, economic, environmental etc). The threats to our well-being and even our existence are growing and the urgency to address them is accelerating.

In mid-career I became curious about why/how we FAIL to solve our problems despite our best efforts. I was involved in many failed attempts to solve problems as a worker, leader and consultant (and human being!), and so I had plenty of data to consider on the way to understanding this discouraging phenomenon.

Most of us have a high degree of self-confidence in our own intelligence and ability to solve their problems. This attitude has a strong adaptive value: it provides us with a sense of optimism and efficacy that is the rocket fuel for the problem-solving effort. Without that hopeful “can-do” attitude, we are at risk for giving up at the start or too soon. Unfortunately, our confident beginnings do not always result in a new era of better results.

There are many ways to fail. If we don’t make a plan to succeed, or don’t diligently implement our solution/plan, or don’t notice that our brilliant plan isn’t working, our results will be … disappointing. Where things get really interesting is when we develop a solution and implement it and clearly fail. What do we do then?

Trigger warning: Failure ahead!

There is something about “failure” that tends to trigger certain patterns in the human brain and behavior. While success fills us with happiness and energy and pride and hope (and serotonin and testosterone), failure is usually perceived as an existential threat with a strong blast of fear, shame and doubt (and cortisol and other adrenal “stress hormones”). Failure to reach a valued goal (get more food, money, status, sex etc.) triggers adaptive strategies of fighting and fleeing, but not always deep problem analysis or creative solution seeking/innovation. In fact, the more threat of failure we feel, the less access we have to the higher cortical/executive brain functions on which our success ultimately depends.

One of the ways we protect our own security from the threat of failure/blame is to fall back on the “It wasn’t me!” defense (denial/externalization) which we first employ as children and often carry on into adulthood. How many people do you know who, when facing a problem at work or in their personal life, first ask “Hmm, what am I doing that is generating this bad result?” Most of us have the tendency to point the finger of blame outward and to keep it fixed there (though there are of course some people who take on more than their fair share of responsibility for bad results).

In a provocative article titled “Teaching smart people how to learn”, Chris Argyris proposes that while success depends on learning, many smart people don’t know how to learn and adapt when facing failure:

“Because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever their [preferred] learning strategies go wrong, they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the ‘‘blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most.”

Argyris argues that most people view problems as existing “out there” in the world, and tend to defensively leave themselves out of consideration when looking for root causes of failure. Since we often contribute to the very problems we complain about, this tendency to externalize renders us blind to the very information that can enable us to formulate truly innovative and effective strategies. Argyris proposes a learning process that focuses not only on what is going on in the environment but also on what we ourselves are thinking and doing in the context of our failure to make things better. The admission that even smart talented people can be part of the “problem” requires a kind of deep HUMILITY that is quite rare.

New thinking ➡️ new action

In order to adapt to changing circumstances and inevitable failures, we need fresh thinking and the ability to abandon even cherished ideas and beliefs that are not working. Abraham Lincoln offers the following advice learned from his efforts (including his many military and political failures) to prevent the disintegration of the country of which he was the chief executive:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

The word “disenthrall” is worthy of contemplation. To enthrall means to captivate or charm, or more ominously to put/hold in slavery or subjugate. When facing a threat or challenge, we seek a way of thinking (our “theory of the case”) that makes us feel safe and in control and advances our interests. When we find such a way, regardless of how “right” or effective it is, we can become enthralled by that way of thinking because of the sense of security it provides. This can at least partially account for how people can hold onto patterns of thought and action despite months, years and even decades of failure.

Here are three examples of smart talented people being so enthralled by certain cherished beliefs and theories and paradigms that they were stuck in a doom loop of failure and blinded to fresh solutions to longstanding problems.

Teachers gotta teach

Teachers believe that every child can learn and it is their job to make that learning happen. School leaders, most of whom are former teachers, are captivated by that idea as well. It is their core professional (and often personal) belief system. So it is no surprise that they tend to conceptualize most problems as a learning/teaching challenge.

One enduring problem in schools is “bullying” (aka violence) which, by its nature, tends to trigger strong feelings and opinions in teachers, parents, students and school leaders. In a presentation to a group of school superintendents and principals, I suggested that the root cause of their failure to solve their bullying problem was the following core beliefs:

• Bullies are basically “good kids”

• Bullying is mostly the result of a lack of information/skill and can be largely prevented by educational means (e.g. communication and negotiation training)

• All students have a fundamental right to an IN-school education no matter what

When teachers and school leaders are too enthralled by their educational beliefs and practices, they often fail to take responsibility for their “anti-bullying” programs that don’t work, and to seek out and apply more effective approaches to the violence in their midst.

Judges gotta judge

While teachers tend to embrace notions of teaching and helping, judges and lawyers and police have an affinity for ideas like personal responsibility and tough consequences. While they refer to the courts and prisons as part of a criminal “justice” system, they are in fact operating a massive punishment program. Their enthralling core beliefs are:

• People who commit bad acts are bad people

• They deserve to suffer bad consequences, and applying these punishments will reduce the frequency of these bad acts

• The toughest best punishment is imprisonment

The incidence of violent crime in the United States is unacceptably high, and the clearance/conviction rate for violent crimes is unacceptably low, despite our investment of over $300 billion per year in the criminal justice system. I believe the root cause of this disappointing ROI is an over-reliance on and near obsession with punishment and incarceration as the preferred solution to criminal behavior.

Despite extensive evidence that punishment is a rather gross strategy for behavioral management and control, most of the operators (with some positive exceptions) of the criminal justice system are so enthralled with their notions of bad people deserving bad consequences that they keep defaulting to more of the same. These dominant beliefs (which are of course assumed to be “right”) block these players from asking “What are WE doing that is causing us to fail, and what better alternatives are available?”

Treaters gotta treat

While the preferred mode of intervention for teachers is teaching and for judges is punishing, for health professionals it is “treating”. Their enthralling core beliefs are:

• If a person is suffering from a health condition/symptom, it is because of a disease process INSIDE of that person

• The first step in curing a patient is to diagnose the illness in them

• The last step is to treat the illness in them

Many healthcare professionals are currently suffering from a condition referred to as “burnout” which includes symptoms of low energy/mood and feelings of stress at work. Extensive research indicates that the root causes of burnout are in the work ENVIRONMENT (too much work + too little control + too few resources = burnout). But healthcare (and other) leaders and HR professionals continue to focus their intervention efforts on individuals exhibiting “symptoms”.

Enthralled by the medical model of “illness” being INSIDE of people, they note the similarities between the symptoms of burnout and depression, and prescribe ineffective solutions such as stress management, therapy/coaching, and anti-depressants (and negative performance evaluations!). As with the teachers and judges above, certain deeply held beliefs enthrall the treaters’ minds and block the needed shift in focus to the real vectors of the burnout epidemic for solutions that work.

Summary

We tend to view our minds as smart computers, and they can be. But some of our evolved brain systems can cause us to act dumb. When we face challenges and seek solutions for them, we should remain on the alert for some of our mental reflexes that can drive us toward failure rather than the success we desire:

• React to the threat of failure with more fight/flight than diligent problem-solving and experimentation

• Point the finger of blame/responsibility outward again and again and …

• Remain captivated/enthralled by certain beliefs and assumptions that make us feel good and advance our interests, but also keep generating solutions that fail

• Forget to gather data on the results of our solutions/plans to see if they worked

• Resist changing our minds and strategies again and again and …

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