#ThinkfullyHabit: Fail to deliver
There’s lots of wisdom around failing fast and learning from mistakes. Much focus is given to dealing effectively with failure. Less attention is given to how mistakes can be a potential source of inspiration for trying something new.
“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
WHY?
In 1956, Wilson Greatbatch, an engineer and inventor, made a mistake. While he was building a machine to record the sound of the human heart he accidentally installed the wrong bit of kit. As a result, instead of recording the sound of the heart, the machine started to give off an electrical pulse. However, it turned out to be quite a fortuitous error. As he later recounted, "I stared at the thing in disbelief’; he quickly realised that this device could be used to regulate the human heart, while using almost no battery power at all. Before this, pacemakers were mains-powered, the size of a tv set and far from being implantable. Greatbatch realised his error had accidentally pointed him in the direction of something new.
Greatbatch seized on the opportunity that opened up before him. His decision to follow this new detour took it from being an accident to learn from, to the inspiration for a new medical breakthrough. He stopped working on his machine to record the sound of the human heart and started working on a new pacemaker device. It took two years and led to the creation of one of the most significant medical devices of all time; an implantable cardiac pacemaker. Today, more than three million people worldwide have benefitted from Greatbatch's discovery and 600,000 pacemaker implants are fitted every year.
Mistakes happen. Sometimes we benefit from learning from them. Occasionally, we may benefit from the opportunity to try something new as a result. There's an extra question to ask in the face of failure that goes beyond what can be learnt - it's to ask, 'Are there any new unexpected ideas that arise from this failure?' Failing to seize those opportunities when they come along would be the biggest failures of all.