“If you’re interested in learning from failure, you have to be curious. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, it went wrong. It didn’t work. Okay, let’s move on…'” ~ Samuel West
Curiosity gets a lot of credit for success.
For me, that raises an interesting inverse question: what about curiosity and failure?
And if, as Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School’s failure guru, says, “Failure is part of the journey toward success,” then where and how might curiosity come in?
Who better to invite into that conversation than Samuel West, creator of Museum of Failure, a collection of failed products and services from around the world?
We talk about why being playful makes failure more palatable, museums as a respite from the rest of life, failure’s essential place in innovation, active curiosity in the face of discomfort, “technology looking for a problem,” distinguishing between failures and mistakes, exploration and experimentation, the dangers of thinking we’ve got it all figured out, our obsession with success — and the total curiosity fail of the Pinky Glove.
Everything that we take for granted — the good stuff that we take for granted –there were multiple attempts made before it was successful. There are many, many failures that led up to it…
Listen to #309: Curiosity & Re-Evaluating Failure, with Samuel West
Samuel West is a clinical psychologist whose work and research is driven by curiosity and a playful, experimental approach.
Check out Museum of Failure.
Amy Edmondson is a fan of failing better.
If you’d like to keep rethinking success/failure, you might dig into these C2BC Classics: Rebel Leadership, with Larry Robertson; Superpower: Curiosity & Athletic Performance, with Addie Bracy; and Curiosity & Finding Good, with Brian Fretwell.
Theme music by Sean Balick. “The Rampart” by Castle Danger, via Blue Dot Sessions.
You can subscribe to Choose to Be Curious on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
