How to Fail GloriouslySuccessfully

Eugene Eric KimMarch 9, 2014San Francisco, CA

My Qualifications?

• Founded two collaboration consultancies: Blue Oxen Associates and Groupaya

• More horror stories than you can count, including failing at failing

• Experimenting with ways to scale collaborative literacy. Most haven’t worked.

• Lots of lessons learned at fasterthan20.com

• Good at asking why

What are your qualifications?

Think of a story where you were successful at overcoming adversity.

Now think of a story where youfailed magnificently.

Why do we care about failing?

We don’t. We care aboutsolving hard problems.

Solving hard problems requires that we begood at learning.

This kind of learning ismessy and hard.

How can we fail successfully?

1. Be real2. Feel3. Practice

1. Be real2. Feel3. Practice

It is not a badge of honor to fail.

It’s a badge of honor to learn.

Failure as a Success Metric

☐ …☐ …☑ Something unexpected went

wrong☑ We learned from a previous

mistake☐ …☐ …

Be Precise About Failure

FailureMinimum Success

Target Success

Epic Success

!

1. Be real2. Feel3. Practice

“Joyful” Funerals?!

Aligning what you say with how you actually feel.

Be nice to yourself.Seriously!

1. Be real2. Feel3. Practice

Practice Falling!

“Fall down.

Make a mess.

Break something occasionally.

Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be.

And remember that the story is never over.”

—Conan O’Brien,2000 Harvard Commencement Speech

Thank you!Eugene Eric Kimeekim@fasterthan20.comTwitter: @eekim

Drawings by Amy Wu of words & design. Cute nephews courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law.

Some rights reserved. CC BY 4.0