Failure Recoil: How to Elevate Learning in Failure

“Don’t get better at not failing. Get better at fast learning after failure.” Edmondson, 2023.

“Recoil is neither slow nor random. Recoil is a swift reaction made with intentionality and intensity. Don’t waste effort trying to avoid intelligent failure. Instead, become a recoil engineer.” 

This is the one. This one.

If you were to ask us, “What should our first and best focus be as individuals and as an organization from Amy Edmondson’s book, The Right Kind of Wrong?” we would tell you Failure Recoil.

No, Dr. Edmondson doesn’t use the term “Failure Recoil” in this book, but we do. In fact, I think I coined the phrase after reading and rereading her works over Christmas break. (Remember my outdoor hobbies? Recoil sits neatly in the archery, fly fishing, marksmanship worlds.)

Take a minute and watch the most brilliant Failure Recoil scene from my 2nd favorite movie of all time.

What does Failure Recoil actually mean? And how can you (or your team) become Failure Recoil Engineers?

Let’s start with RECOIL.

Physically, recoil is a swift drawback or spring backward. We don’t love the word retreat, but directionally you can think of it as a swift retreat in the opposite direction you were going.

Emotionally, it is protective and repulsive. After a harsh word from a friend, spouse, or coworker, an emotional recoil simply means, “Hold up. Back off. Need a little space.” It’s harder to describe it than recognize it. Here is what it looks like:

This is Donna Meagle:

This is Donna Meagle recoiling:

You know emotional recoil when you see it.

For the many things recoil is and can be, it is always a swift redirect in the opposite direction. Hold on to that image while I fold failure into the batter.

Failure Recoil is an intentional, aggressive, and recalibrating response to a failure. Failure Recoil happens at the individual level and the systemic/team level. It is typically not an innate first response for the professionals working at your organization. We have found (and Edmondson appears to agree) that Failure Recoil takes effort, training, and a safe context in order for it to happen. Read that again. It takes effort (you aren’t going to *want* to do this), training (you won’t be good at it from the get go), and a safe context (this will never happen in toxic or “safe zone” environments). And we shouldn’t be surprised about any of this because all people are really good at minimizing failures. We minimize failures in order to advance. We minimize failures to get a good grade. We minimize failure to maintain status. And unfortunately, when we minimize failure, we cannot learn from it.

Here is the nice and neat twine and ribbon that ties this whole thing together:

The “safe zone” in organizations is a reduced failure zone. It is also a reduced innovation zone because innovation can only happen in the “new territory” where you aren’t already. Failure minimization only cements “safe zone” organizations because learning from failure cannot happen. When learning from failure cannot happen, your organization plateaus, begins to decline, and establishes its expiration date. “Safe Zone” organizations are on their way to dying. It is a harsh reality. We have seen far too many organizations exist in the safe zone right up until it’s over.

Failure Recoil is critical because failure must happen. And when failure happens, we all need a next step.

How do I *do* failure recoil? How do I lead a team that recoils from failure?

This is the best question leaders should ask after reading the first half of this article. You are convinced (or at the very least…curious) that failure is inevitable and preferred if your organization is going to grow. And it appears that you are more than a little bit convinced that a healthy failure response is unnatural but necessary - that it should be swift and momentum generating for what is next.

Good. It’s time for some practical application.

Failure Recoil: Initiate, Improve, Increase.

Initiating failure recoil requires self awareness, team psychological safety, and courage. Here is a (hopefully) meaningful parallel. Initiating failure recoil is very similar to the first five minutes after spouse arguments that end with an apology; it is what happens AFTER the apology that sets the tone.

We had a disagreement.
There were some hurts.
I’m not feeling my best right now.
But…we said we’re sorry and forgave each other.
Wallow or move on?
Keep fighting passively or say something when an ol’ fashioned silent treatment is justified?
Fight through the head game. Initiate.

Failure recoil is just like this. It is the best analogy I have for it. The failure happened. There are some hurts. I’m not feeling great about it or me right now. But I committed to trying and did my best. Wallow or move on? Hang out in victim land, or do a next thing?

The first step after failure may not be the most critical one, but it HAS to be the most trained one. Initiating failure recoil requires owning the risk you took, owning the opportunity the risk afforded, and acknowledging that you were a pretty daring and smart individual to attempt it.

“A lesser __________ would never have tried this. It was a smart and daring move. I must be a smart and daring person.” Fill in the blank with Director of Development, Associate Head of School, CMO, etc. This is the momentum you need to start the learning process.

Improving failure recoil is the part about learning. Edmondson’s (2023) words ring true here, “Don’t get better at not failing. Get better at fast learning after failure.” When failure happens and you have INITIATED failure recoil, you are ready to IMPROVE failure recoil. Improving failure recoil is an evaluation. It is analysis. It requires examination, a second set of eyes, and equal doses of humility and creativity. Creative daring got you here, and with some redirection it will be creative daring that will see this thing through.

There are more books than we should count about learning from failures. For the purposes of this post, I want to focus on three realities that I believe really fit the failure recoil frame and point to new learning.

• Failure outcomes aren’t 100% failures. Some of what you did was right and should be replicated. Seating this idea in the Middle School classroom really illustrates it well. A 60% on an algebra test is a failing grade…in which the student got it right 3 out of every 5 questions. There is some algebra sticking in that student, and the same is true for your effort that failed. It is vitally important that you tease out the aspects that kept you on track versus the ones that torpedoed the initiative, plan, or project. That can be difficult to do on your own, so we advise bringing on help from an outside source to do this part well.

• Sometimes failures happen because of the sequence, timing, combination of, and prioritization of your tactics. Let that sink in. Perhaps every tactic in the failed initiative was the right one– it’s just that the order, timing, or combination of implementation measures messed up. This is a reminder that the exacto knife should not be your first tool in failure recoil. Instead, start with a KitchenAid and mixing bowl. Walk your strategy backwards before cutting out any particular idea, step, or strategy.

• Context matters. Context always matters. As you review your failure, consider the context that it occurred in. By that we mean, what were the extrinsic factors that contributed to the initiative working or not working? Do you have any control over those factors? Were you fully clued in on the external environment that impacted your plan? Are you now? When JSS leads organizations in Strategic Planning, we spend 3-4 times as much energy and effort on the external context of the organization than the internal context. (the O and T of SWOT) Why do we do that? That is not hard for us to answer–we think that the external context has more impact on your full organization strategy and outcomes than internal ones. It has to do with focus and attention, and how you probably have way more staff dedicated to the internal context than external (HR, accounting, Chief of Staff, curriculum, classroom management, student/client support, etc.). Typically, plateaued “safety zone” organizations are excellent internally and unaware externally. Failure averse teams usually can boast about their internal homeostasis and effectiveness. If you are ready to learn from a recent failure, look out before looking in. You are likely to find some causes or impacting factors.

Increasing failure recoil is a maximization of speed, efficiency and volume of failure recoil. This third element has everything to do with the “fast” in “fast learning after failure.” When you or your team practice failure recoil, it becomes an efficient practice. In many cases, it can become as routine as the practice itself. The most innovative organizations we know practice this quick learning after failure so much that it is included in the design and redesign process. Truly, with practice, you can become quite good and fast at failure recoil. Here are a few pointers for fast learning:

• Energize: We like to encourage self-care before INITIATING failure recoil. Take a personal day, get outside, raise your heart rate and breathing, reinvest in you. If you were on fumes when the initiative failed, you won’t be ready to recoil. NOTE: self care and wallowing are not the same. 

• Wisdom: If you go looking for wisdom and perspective when you need it, you are late. We like to encourage leaders to remain postured at the feet of wisdom regularly. The speed of failure recoil is often determined by how quickly you can gain the insights and perspective of others.

• Team: Psychologically safe teams increase the rate of learning in failure recoil. When it is a “we” overcoming failure rather than a “me,” it will go more quickly. Your team will be back up and running more quickly if the environment of your team commits to openness, honesty, transparency, belonging, etc. 

• Creative Daring: You can call it calculated risk if you want. The necessity of including the same creative daring that got you here in the recoil process cannot be overstated. More often than not, the solution is a creative one and not a “crunch the numbers again” one. We keep going back to the failure recoil scene in A Few Good Men where Tom Cruise catches a second wind. “I need my bat.” “He does think better with his bat.”

• Put it down & Pick it up: There is a good chance that the solution(s) to what failed before will come to you when the work isn’t right in front of your face. When we help organizations write strong capital campaign Cases for Support, we always urge the writers and collaborators to put it down and come back to it. Set it aside again and come back to it. There is some rewiring in our brains that happens when we shift the car from Drive to Park, Park to Drive, Drive to Park, Park to Drive. That transition frequently generates the creativity needed to arrive at a new and better solution.

It is Time to Ask for Help

The idea of failure recoil is not new, but the methods and innovation involved continue to emerge. We strongly urge you to do something different for your organization right now. We want to stress the importance of having a guide join you for this part. It will be worth the investment to get this part right–for your leadership team, your board, your faculty, your directors, your cabinet. Our partnerships always start with a conversation at no cost to you. From there, we can establish the best way to bring new habits and learning to your organization. Whether it is ongoing coaching, a retreat, or a professional development day, we always customize our services to your needs and desires for long term growth.

Failure Recoil is textbook organizational rising. Big things happen when you move to be in the rise. So watch for rising!