Learning from mistakes – prerequisite for innovation
In Melbourne we have a small group of mainly public sector folk who get together monthly to talk about innovation. Recently we have been talking about how innovation requires that people be supported in their mistake-making rather than vilified. Sadly the opposite is generally true in the public sector with its culture of risk aversion and blaming rarely displaying mistake-forgiving behaviour. This is a significant conundrum for governments (i.e. all of them) which rely on government agencies as their primary (innovative) policy think-tanks.
While not a solution to the public sector innovation dilemma, it was timely that Denham Grey point us to this interesting essay on how we can learn from our mistakes. I love the following quote:
The kind of mistakes you make define you. The more interesting the mistakes, the more interesting the life. If your biggest mistakes are missing reruns of tv-shows or buying the wrong lottery ticket you’re not challenging yourself enough to earn more interesting mistakes.
One of my quests in life is to meet interesting people. It looks like I will need to look out for interesting mistakes and follow the scent.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on: