Innovation does not come without discarding ideas, trying and failing. In complex systems with complex challenges, failure is inevitable and desired. If we need to prototype to sense our way forward we have to have a mindset that can handle failure.
On Saturday at the Art of Participatory Leadership in Petaluma my new friend Shawn Berry convened a session on failure and through listening to stories ranging from small prototoyping failures to business breakdowns and even deaths, I noted a few patterns that are helpful for groups and people to address failure positively nd resourcefully
Frame it up. In North America and Europe we have a cultural aversion to failure. Failure is equated with inadequacy. Our self-esteem is tied to our success. Our compensation and status is affected by failure. Fear of failure is prevalent in the culture. In order to combat this tendency, it is helpful to work with a group to get them acquainted to failing. For more playful groups improv exercises can be an excellent way to drop inhibitions to try something and fail. More rational groups might benefit from a little appreciative inquiry where participants recall positive failing experiences. Reflecting and sharing on times of failure and survival reminds us that it is part of the process.
Support the experience. While groups are experimenting and learning, succeeding and failing it helps to have support and coaching present in the process. Depending on the kind of work being done you can offer support to keep a group resilient and unattached. I have used several different kinds of processes here including the following:
- Simply pausing for reflection periodically in the process to notice what is going on. Slowing the process down helps to gain valuable perspective on what is happening and helps a group move on quickly from failure.
- allowing failure to occur and then taking the subsequent stressful thoughts to an inquiry process using The Work of Byron Katie. We do this often when working with groups in the non-profit sector for example, where the pressure to succeed is accompanied by feelings of fear of the results of failing.
- In indigenous and other colonized cultural settings I have often had Elders and healers present who can care for the more invisible dynamics in the field, especially when our work is going to carry us into some of the sources of trauma. When you are working in a place where people are operating out of deep historical trauma, the fear of failure can be laden with many many deep seated implications. Having people in the process who understand these dynamics is essential.
- Peer-coaching is a common way to build resilience in groups where trying and failing is important. When a team is trying to learn something new it helps to also build the capacity for them to be able to rely on each other. This is why so many teams value “cross-training.” When athletes train, they often work out in ways that are not related to their sport _ a skier training by rowing for example. Doing this helps them to learn to use their body differently and builds strength that supports their core work. Similarly, work teams can learn a lot about themselves by creating situations of safe failure such as through improvisational exercises, outdoor experiences, games and other non-work focuses. The skills learned there can help support the team when they knuckle down to focus on key tasks and can support constructive failure within the work domain. Ultimately these skills will build capacity if they increase the ability of the group to support itself through stressful times.
- Developing a practice of greeting failure with joy. My friend Khelsilem Rivers taught me this one. He is – among other things – an indigenous language teacher and using the tool kit “Where Are Your Keys” Khelsilem helps people become fluent in their indigenous languages. One of the barriers to rapid fluency is a fear of “not doing it right.” Khelsilem completely transforms the experience of failure by introducing the technique called “How Fascinating!” When a person (including the facilitator) makes a mistake, the whole group celebrates by throwing their hands in the air, leaning back and declaring “How Fascinating!” While it might seem contrived at first, the technique opens up the body, and greets the failure with a collective celebration. Blame and judgement is avoided, collective support is activated and learning is grounded.
Practices like these are essential to build into the architecture of processes where failure is inevitable if innovation is to occur.
Process the grief. When catastrophic failure occurs it can leave people grieving, frightened and cynical. If there is no way to process the grief then individuals often build their next prototype out of fear. If you feel you have been burned before, you might develop your next idea by building in protection against failing again. While that can seem prudent and safe, in reality, building structures out of fear is a much riskier proposition than building structures out of possibility. Without processing grief, a group or a person can be susceptible to being “defended.” I learned much about this state from Dr. Gordon Neufeld who is a child psychologist who has described this phenomenon in children. Taking a group or a person through the grief cycle using empathy, story telling and compassion can help free the emotions that are triggered in future learning experiences.
Building a mindset to embrace failure and support the transformation of the energy of failure is critical to groups developing the capacity to lead in complexity.
I’ve also written about failure here:
- Mutations and system change
- Dealing with the architecture of fear
- Power, belonging and failure
- Moving from failsafe to safefail
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Yesterday was wonderful. We spent the whole day around a fire on MacKenzie Beach listening to three stories and reflecting back what we learned. Pawa’s father Moy and uncle Tim both told stories of growing up in a traditional family and village. For me Tim’s story of getting stranded with his brother in a rowboat was powerful and contained all kinds of teachings about leadership, knowledge and practice. In the afternoon we did the same with Admire’s story from Zimbabwe, the story of what is happening at Kufunda Village. A full day of deeply listening to stories, harvesting lessons and teachings. And then this morning, Tim’s story was reenacted. Myself and Kelly, one of the participants here, re-enacted the story of Tim and his brother in a canoe alternately rowing and baling and having to switch roles while the waves pitch and roll. Physically re-enacting the story, sitting in chairs and actually switching places as if we were in a canoe leant a depth to the story – teachings about balance and safety and working together. Feeling it is a whole different kind of listening.
One of the things that is happening here is that we are beginning to experience a really different sense of time. We are spending our days outside, blessed by constant sunshine that is a complete surprise at this time of year. We are gathering around a fire on the beach or sometimes outside one of the cabins where we are staying. Teachings are flowing in everything we do, from cooking to walking, to spending time alone. Time is so slow here and we are finding ourselves going to bed at 8:00 after the sunsets and waking up early in the morning. This is probably one of the most interesting teachings we are getting from the land itself, watching the tides come and go and the moon grow towards fullness, as we barbeque salmon on the fire and share the work of our little village.
Purpose is beginning to arise amongst us. And as that happens, offerings are beginning to appear as well, offerings of space for future gatherings, offerings of resources and friendship and deep commitment. We are still running the Indiegogo campaign so people from around the world are contributing there too, and you can join them. Tomorrow we continue our living in open space, heading out for a walk in the woods and perhaps playing some lahal later after the sun goes down.
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The weather here on MacKenzie Beach near Tofino is unusually summery. THe families that were running around over the Thanksgiving weekend are gone now and only a few remain behind. We began our learning village with a circle gathered around a fire on the beach, maybe 20 of us, sharing Indian Candy (half smoked salmon) dried berries and tea, telling the stories of our names and why we responded to the invitation to join a week of learning together.
We don’t have young ones here, but the oldest is 82 and we have folks from Denmark, Zimbabwe, the United States and France in our midst. We are teaching and learning with love and kindness, eating and cleaning together, intrigued by the idea of Hahopa, singing songs and repecting protocols, making poems and songs together and starting to find the clarity of the new story we are here to create.
Tonight in the kitchen, where the truly great conversations take place, I was talking about how having the world here on this beach was a harbinger of the new story. the problems that people face in First Nations communities are directly related to the relations between the communities and the rest of the world. Hahopa, as it opens and begins today, was about the world coming to offer its own wisdom and to learn Nuu-Chah-Nulth wisdom. We are in learning together, leaning into a small whisper of a future world of reconciled humanity, beyond apologizing and forgiving – studying together, learning how to learn and live together, and doing it for the children.
All of these are the faintest whispers as we begin, but something is stirring. Here is the poem I harvested in our check in:
Admire’s desire is to ignite the fire of learning and knowledge
and knowing the college of the land, the culture that stands
for a thousands years
cattle farming and ocean rearing
living in open space to face
a way to govern ourselves
to stay true to our passion and the fashion that takes responsibility.Toke has spoken of the crazy token of blood
that moves through the veins and floods us with connection
between people and the land
and the waves that nudge us together in the foggy morning weather.My grandmother taught me with out ever seeing
the source of what was being shared with me
and what wasn’t clear to see.The loyalty and fidelity to peaceful refuge has formed me.
cultivating a future view in community can hospitality
sensing drala that is the real caller,
a deep holler from the land that wants us to stop and understand
what is born again in the sixtieth journey around the sun
What has begun
what it takes to cross places of struggle
confront that which wriggles within us
and begs to be bigger, a mind that can find
the compassionate line at the heart of her humanityI’m here for the long term, an uprooted farm hand
that has moved across lands
between worlds
where whatever shows up can be hosted by the whole
so the whole can know what none of us knows
what is encoded in the stories that lives in our bones.I am with family, my brother and my friend
and there is no end to the people I want to know
to extend my appreciation to this nation.My roots spread out and my re-beginnings are here
a clear reminder of seven dear racoons
begging for dinner under the light of the moon,This is truly my whale
and this journey has been us just getting to this canoe
bridging two worlds struggling
to renew an ancient way of being better together
weaving a generous
“ish” not the ish in “selfish”
but the ish in Hishukish tswalk
hahopa wealth, health and a stealthy
ceremony that restores harmony.This field now begins to grow
as we get to know the flow
that pulls us together
and respects my longing to be known by my name”What is the indigenous wisdom that needs to be shared with the world now?
I come from seal riders who plumb the depths of this sea
discover the passages that run beneath what we see
and I have sent my life with trees
and climbing the peaks – hawktooa.I was brought up to help, be proud of what we do and have fun doing it.
I am a woman of many names and none are remembered
but I carry them all contrarian call
that leads to the edges of the earthMy cedar and spruce roots
reach across this island
teach me to understand
how to conserve what has been given to usThe quality of people, quality of land, quality of time
to the watery hearth of the setting sun
this it, the learning village has begun.
Please drop in for a day if you are nearby. Also please donate to the Indiegogo campaign to help us meet the costs of this gathering and seed whatever comes next.
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“Tell everyone you know: “My happiness depends on me, so you’re off the hook.” And then demonstrate it. Be happy, no matter what they’re doing. Practice feeling good, no matter what. And before you know it, you will not give anyone else responsibility for the way you feel – and then, you’ll love them all. Because the only reason you don’t love them, is because you’re using them as your excuse to not feel good.”
– Esther Abraham-Hicks
via whiskey river.
Heading to Hahopa today. Hahopa is an idea. It is a place of the heart and the imagination which is rooted in the Nuu-Chah-Nulth principle of “teaching and learning with love and kindness.” You might say that it is a place of grace, an ideal place where we can ground our happiness in an experimental way of being.
Hahopa is the dream of my friend Pawa Haiyupis. Pawa’s full name is Pawasquacheetl which means “she gives in the feast with the energy of bees coming out of a hive.” For years she has wanted to give the world a place where Nuu-Chah-Nulth teachings can be offered to anyone who feels that they are useful. Inspired by our friends at Kufunda village in Zimbabwe, Pawa and her family this week are embarking on an incredible dream. The work we do together this week will set in place a lifetime of contribution to the world.
So I am off to Tofino where we will initiate this endeavour being hosted by the land, the beach and the sea. We are open to seeing what will come of it and how it will flow.
If you would like to support this dream, please consider donating to the Indiegogo campaign and follow along here and on the facebook page where I will be helping to harvest what we learn.
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Here we are On September 22 in Vancouver. Tens of thousands of people walking in the rain across the Georgia Street viaduct, down one side and up the other.
My family and I stood in the rain very near the front of the walk that morning listening speakers talk about what we doing there. Chief Robert Joseph, who we all call “Bobby Joe” had a dream and here we were living it. As a longtime voice of the victims of residential schools and then a champion of reconciliation, Bobby Joe had glimpsed a possibility: that if enough Canadians could come together in one place and have an experience of reconciliation through encountering one another and then being together, then something might start.
He formed an organization called Reconciliation Canada to do just that. He hired good people (many of them friends of mine) to train British Columbians in running circles around the province so that Indigenous and settler could encounter one another’s stories. And he dreamed of a walk together at the conclusion of a week of hearings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vancouver.
And so on a wet Sunday morning, I took my family and we went downtown and we stood near an empty stage in the pouring rain and became part of Bobby Joe’s dream. And we stood there for two hours, listening to speeches from friends and colleagues like Chief Ian Campbell and Judge Murray Sinclair and Karen Joseph, Bobby’s daughter. And all the while the crowd swelled behind us and we had no idea how many people had come out in the downpour to be a part of this event until Shelagh Rogers made the declaration that there were 70,000 people and that they stretched up Georgia Street as far as we could see. That was astonishing. I held that number in my mind even as I listened to Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say her piece. It was impressive but not yet powerful.
And then Wa sang.
Wa is a ‘Namgis friend I met at a gathering last November. I’m surprised I’ve never met him before, but we clicked deeply, as Wa does with many people. He is an affable, funny and important man. Important because he is a song catcher – he knows probably thousands of songs from his own community and others around him in the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw territories of northern Vancouver Island and the Central Coast. He knows songs from all the neighbouring nations too, whether Coast Salish, Nuu-Cha-Nulth, Haida, Haisla or Nuxalk. And he helps people, especially youth, catch snippets of melody that float through the coastal air like orographic clouds, hanging in atmosphere ready to be turned into nourishing rain.
Wa sang. He sang something simple and powerful. A monosyllabic single line repeated several times. he sang it from a place of deepest resonance. If we had been in a big house, he would have shook the poles. He shook mine – cracked me wide open.
After Wa sang the walk began. A screen was raised and lowered several times, a thin threshold that separated the 70,000 from a small group of people who were adorned in regalia. Someone was blowing eagle down back at us. Drums and cheering were heard everytime the screen came down to reveal this crowd. And in time we began to walk down Georgia Street and onto the viaduct.
Now the physical location of this walk was important. Georgia Street leads on to an elevated roadway which at one time in Vancouver’s history was going to be a freeway connection from the centre of the city out to the Trans Canada Highway near the Burnaby border. Georgia and Dunsmuir Streets were both led on to elevated expressways but before they could get to Chinatown the project was stopped. Completing the work would have destroyed neighbourhoods and communities, especially the historic urban Chinese Italian and native communities of the downtown eastside. It was, as many projects like it are, undertaken with a sense of contempt for the communities below. But it was stopped and there is a story about that and the story is one of repect – literally “looking again” at something and seeing something far more important to protect in the face of “progress.” Ironically, Dunsmuir Street was named for James Dunsmuir, a former premier and industrialist who was an advocate for raising the poll tax on Asians even as he imported them by the hundreds to work on his railways and coal mines. Georgia Street was named for King George III who issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – 250 years ago today – that is the basis for all treaty and reconciliation law in Canada. It should be renamed the Reconciliation Parkway.
That was the road we walked out on. There we all were, some three stories above the ground heading out of downtown. It was beautiful, but lonely and confining. From the middle of the crowd I had no sense of how big we were or where we were all going, and so I walked inside myself, reflecting on the act of reconciliation. It felt like the energy had been drawn out, lost and quieted.
And then something astonishing happened. The march doubled back on itself. At the end of the expressway, the crowd walked down off off Georgia Street and did a 180 degres turn onto the Dunsmuir Street ramp. As they doubled back I could hear them coming and then we met – 50 meters apart, three stories into the air, we met the waves of walkers, led by the survivors in their regalia. We couldn’t reach them but only watch and call out as we passed one another in the air. But here we were, finally walking together in a way that encountered each other. Like the two-row wampum belt, separate paths, but seen and visible. Honoured and held up. Survivors waving at us like you do when two boats pass. Songs filling the space between us, cheers and greetings rising up out of the crowd. The traditional coastal gesture of raising one’s hands in respect and acknowledgement became a profound way for me to greet people. I raised my hands to every survivor I made eye contact and I received in return smiles, and waves and raised hands back. It was irresistible, and in the photo above you can see the people on the Dunsmuir side all pressed to the edge, greeting the bulk of the walkers coming the other way.
Somehow unwittingly, this march had created a physical container for reconciliation. We could see each other, greet each other, connect with each other even as we were separated, elevated and moving.
Reconciliation is not a single act at a single point in time. It is living this dynamic swirl of relationships like this always.
Once we came off the bridge the march wound through Chinatown and at one point stopped in front of Tinseltown, a downtown mall. A group of about ten women were drumming and singing a well known women’s warrior song, and we stopped to join them. That song usually gets sung six times through, but as more and more people joined we sang it over and over and over. Dozens of people arrived, learned the song and sang it at the tops of their lungs, bouncing off the glass facade of the mall and the brick facades of the east side buildings. It was utter joy, as it is to sing a warrior’s song at the top of your lungs with survivors. An unleashing of the emotional energy of the day. A marker.