One morning this week on the way to work, I saw a truck with a “failure is not an option” bumper sticker. It got me thinking about the role of failure in my own life and at NASA. After all, I don’t know that there are many other phrases as closely associated with our organization! I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement, but I wonder if it is really such a good thing for a perspective like this to permeate our organization.
Personally, I’m on the verge of taking on a new role as a supervisor at work. I know that what I want to do is to lead people; yet, a change like this is pretty scary! I’m basically abandoning many of the technical skills that I’ve learned through four years of aerospace engineering education and six years of experience at NASA. I’m taking on a new challenge in my life, and there’s a chance I might fail. I’m very clear, however, that I can’t grow and develop as an individual if I’m not willing to take on new challenges that stretch my abilities. In the process of stretching myself, I am also keenly aware that I am going to fail, at least every once in a while. I understand that it is in those failures where true learning takes place.
Now, one of the benefits of an effective organization is that individual failures aren’t allowed to impact an entire group - obviously, one of the most obvious ways we do that is through the review process. Yet, this brings up a larger question: what is the role of failure in an organization? I’d propose that it is much the same as in an individual’s life, that if an organization is not failing, then it is just an indication that it isn’t stretching and challenging itself. Looking at the Constellation Program, for example, it is clear that our organization is doing something that’s never been done before: creating a presence on the moon and doing so with a huge civilian government organization spread out across the country with infrastructure that is 50 years old!
So it is clear to me that in taking on a task like this, from time to time we will fail as an organization. Perhaps that means that we miss deadlines; perhaps that means that we lose people. So what good does it do us to keep saying that failure is not an option? Aren’t we lying to ourselves and to the rest of the world? What impact does this kind of attitude have on our organization? Does it make us scared and protective when we should be bold and audacious? What would NASA look like if we embraced failure instead of being confined and restricted by it?
In addition, I think that the only thing worse than not being willing to fail is to learn nothing from our failures. I’d propose that the Columbia accident shows that we didn’t learn anything from Challenger… but that’s another story for another time.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:34 am
A very good, honest post. One of the reasons why this blog is a great example of how transparency can work in gov.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Excellent post.
When you become a leader, watch out if people can’t aren’t giving you constructive criticism on your failures.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Good luck at your new job! One thing that you can take with you is that NASA *is* 50 years old, so there are people who have taken the same steps as you, & there are resources you can draw on, like “Managing Scientists and Engineers” & “Transforming Engineers and Scientists Into Managers”, which are resource lists at the HQ library.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I think this gets at the heart of the kind of change we’re trying to promote in this organization. Bravo and good luck.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Personally, I like the mantra “Failure is Not an Option”. To me, it reminds me that if I’m not seeing an answer, perhaps I’m not looking in the right places. Sure, failure is a realistic option for both individuals and organizations; however, I do think that having such an impossible goal of perfection to reach towards helps to drive me, and NASA, to come up with new and innovative ways to tackle problems. To put the saying another way: “Failure is not an Option To be Considered”
The other side to this saying, which often goes unsaid, is that when you do fail, learn from it.
There’s a (perhaps) well known story about an interview Thomas Edison gave about his inventing the light bulb. Someone asked him how many times he failed before succeeding, and he gave some ridiculously large number (like on the order of thousands). The follow on question (and the point of this little story) was to the tune of “How did you not get discouraged after so many failures?” He answered: “I thought of them as finding ways that didn’t work.” If you think about that for a second, what he really said was that he saw each failure for what it did teach him, not for what he failed to accomplish.
If we were to take this approach with our everyday lives as well as our work, I think a lot of the negative things we see would turn into massive amounts of learning opportunities. So while failing shouldn’t be an option on the table, if it does happen, learn from it, and keep moving forward.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I would like to state “Failure IS an option as long as we succeed”. Meaning that we shouldn’t strive so hard to “not fail” that we loose perspective. Further any “failure” should be looked at as a growing experience. In my mind failure only occurs when we don’t get up (from “failures”), or when we don’t try.
I guess what I am saying: Don’t be afraid to fall, but always get back up. Also, work hard to earn your position everyday. Don’t ever assume you are entitled or that you are better than anyone else. If you want to be a good leader be prepared to work hard everyday for those that you are supervising and never loose sight that is your primary function.