“Fail fast and fail hard”
Is one of Mark Zuckerberg’s most famous mantras. And one of the principles central to his company’s (Facebook) business philosophy.
So, why would such a "successful" (at least in the monetary sense) company preach about failure to its very own employees, the supposed antithesis to success?
🧠The paradox of success
Nowadays, any one of us can stride onto a plane and be fairly confident that we will get to where we need to go safe and soundly. But, 100 years back this really wasn’t the case. In fact, at some point in time, the aviation fatality rate was nearly 50%! Just have a look at this newspaper headline from the past, which talks about aeroplanes as a fad.
So, what resulted in such a huge change in the number of safe flights departing and arriving at airports?
Well, failure.
More specifically, learning from failure.
A few years after the inception of commercial flights, a man named David Warren called for the integration of his new “black boxes” into every aeroplane.
A black box is a device that is situated near the cockpit. It records every instruction which is sent through electronic systems as well as all the verbal interactions which occur between aeroplane staff.
In the case of an accident, these near-indestructible boxes can be salvaged from the plane and all the data they have collected can be analysed to see exactly what went wrong.
Every single failure can be identified, from the smallest instruction sent by air traffic controllers to the most catastrophic damage inflicted to the propellers.
And due to this, any time there is an accident, a quick turnaround by the aviation safety team can lead to rapid changes in safety protocols.
This gives us a grim, but purposeful realisation. Our current safety standards were built on learning from the dreadful failures that preceded them.
Of course, the aim is not to fail on purpose.
It is about looking at failure as an opportunity for growth and learning as well as realising that on the path to greatness, it is an inevitable pitstop.
🏃🏻Fail fast in practice
Far too many times, due to our ingrained fear of failure, we set unreachable bars for preparation.
We often tell ourselves lies.
If we want to start studying, we must make a revision timetable, make super neat notes. No scrap that, we must make perfect notes, and have a dedicated and beautiful study space.
Those are all great things, but the amount of effort that you need to exert, even before any progress is made towards your goal, is insane.
The men who started the aviation industry were extremely intelligent and conscientious, but even their comprehensive and diligent planning did not result in a flawless plane that never crashed.
It was the repeated iterations and testing that led to the successful and safe aviation industry we fly with today.
It doesn't matter how much theory you have read about manoeuvring a car, until you have put the key in and switched on the engine, and started driving (practising) you will not be able to drive a car properly.
Over planning is a very easy way to kill any projects and dreams (also known as analysis paralysis). Don't try to be perfect. You will fail, but failing quickly allows you to move on from that missed shot much sooner, so you can get to the next trial, which will yield better results.
🔌Unwire yourself...
Failure is promoted as the end of the line in many stratospheres of society and this starts all the way from primary school. You are usually chastised if you get something wrong, doing badly on tests isn’t met by reevaluating learning strategy, but rather a humiliating verbal lashing from your supposed “educator”.
It is no wonder that what I am saying above is very controversial because we have been programmed since birth that failure is the end of the line rather than an opportunity for physical, mental and even emotional growth.
Even more importantly, you aren’t told that it is absolutely integral towards eventual success.
I see this with our students.
Too many students I teach, see writing notes and reading the textbook as learning and the past paper as just another test.
No, the "failing on the test" is the real LEARNING.
Testing is the best way to see if your revision strategies are working and see where the gaps are in your knowledge.
It doesn’t matter where you start with your papers, it’s about the iterations every week that lead to eventual progress in your results. Nobody is expecting you to have amazing past paper marks months ahead of your exam.
If you start at even 20% on your papers, if you add a few % on every single week. You will be scoring high marks within 2-3 months.
I have a firm belief that the top athletes, actors, writers, academics are at the top of their respective fields because they have failed more than anyone else.
🖥️ Back to Facebook...
Let us finish with a short story from Facebook's early days - the hiring of an intern named Ben.
For context, Facebook was and is an application that needs to be running 24/7. Even a minutes' worth of downtime is catastrophic for the business.
Ben, an intern at the time, ended up breaking Facebook while trying to test a solution for a bug. He took the website down for a whole 30 mins! In most places where the stakes are so high - the words "you are fired" follow closely after such an error/failure.
What happened with Ben?
He got hired.
This is the exact culture which has allowed Facebook to be the behemoth that it is today.
So, be open to mistakes, whilst studying. If Facebook, a multi billion dollar company, can accept such mistakes as part of learning. Then why not you?
Concluding thoughts:
So, go ahead and start that project you always wanted to, unashamed and unafraid of any failure that may result from it. For as Thomas Edison famously said:
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome on the topic.
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