Making the Case for Goal-Setting

Seeking the right kind of failure

The Brief Case 📚→💼→📈→📊

I always point out that there are two different kinds of failure. There’s experimental failure—that’s the kind of failure you should be happy with. And there’s operational failure. We’ve built hundreds of fulfillment centers at Amazon over the years, and we know how to do that. If we build a new fulfillment center and it’s a disaster, that’s just bad execution. That’s not good failure. But when we are developing a new product or service or experimenting in some way, and it doesn’t work, that’s okay. That’s great failure. And you need to distinguish between those two types of failure and really be seeking invention and innovation. - Jeff Bezos

Though the mention of Jeff Bezos always comes with some risk due to the moral complexity of his business endeavors, his thoughts on failure captured above are unequivocally useful to school leaders and boards.

We have found that many people in schools are comfortable with experimenting, piloting, considering new ideas, and so on. However, they become much less comfortable when they miss a target and have to grapple with the reasons. Pulling back even further, the muscle used to set targets often seems underdeveloped in, if not completely absent from, school planning exercises.