Leadership and Executive Development for women of all races, cultures and backgrounds
Issue link: https://diversitywoman.epubxp.com/i/632328
d i v e r s i t y w o m a n . c o m W i n t e r 2 0 1 6 D I V E R S I T Y W O M A N 29 stay on the proverbial whiteboard. Solicit feedback and fgure out how the prototype can be tweaked and improved. Ten try again. And again and again and again. Tat same mind-set describes the industry's entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley is littered with people who have started an endeav- or, failed, and moved on to their second, third, or even fourth one. Tey aren't ex- pected to be Mark Zuckerberg and launch Facebook on their frst try (incidentally, for many years, Facebook's internal motto was "Move Fast and Break Tings"). How can we learn from Silicon Valley? We need to accept that making mistakes is part of every aspect of life. "Our chal- lenges are going to involve failure because if it were easy, it would have already been done," says Ashley Good, founder of Fail Forward, a Toronto-based consultancy that helps organizations and individuals learn from their failures. One of Silicon Valley's popular buzz- words is to iterate. Te concept is the same: fgure out what went wrong and what went right and build on it. It means drafting a proposal and then revising it again and again, rather than being held hostage by the need to craft the perfect introduction. It means experiment- ing with diferent tactics if the frst one doesn't work out. It means taking risks. And it means not fearing failure. A study at Smith College asked 51 female undergraduates to rewrite a passage from a composition. Teir assignment was then blind graded by two college professors. Te study found that the students who were considered perfectionists did a poorer job than those who weren't. Randy O. Smith, the psychology professor who conducted the study, theorized that perfectionists avoided showing their writing to others and having it critiqued, so they didn't re- ceive the feedback that could help them improve. Tey feared getting it wrong, yet it was their fear of failure that hindered them in the end. By Ellen Lee S teve Jobs was the ultimate fail- ure. He dropped out of college, he was ousted by the company he co- founded, and the computer he designed was panned by the media. Yet today Jobs is remembered as one of the most iconic and revered fgures in technology. Can we bene- ft from failure? In Silicon Val- ley, where the motto "Fail Fast, Fail Of- ten" rules, the answer is a resounding yes. Design a product that didn't work? Go back to the drawing board and try again. Failure, the thinking goes, is just one step on the road to the right solution. Tat approach could beneft many of us in all facets of our lives. Women often feel the pressure to be perfect—perfect looks, perfect job, perfect mom. Social media, and the trend toward sharing the most important events in our lives, hasn't helped. Indeed, we ahave good reason to feel the pressure to be perfect. Women, more so than men, are highly scrutinized in THINKSTOCKPHOTOS Failure to Launch their climb up the corporate ladder, espe- cially because so few of us have made it to the top, according to a 2013 paper in the Harvard Business Review. Women of color face additional challenges. Research shows, for example, that when black women are seen as not ftting the "mold" of a leader, they are punished more harshly than their black or white male counterparts if they make a mistake. Is it any wonder that we are cautious about blundering? At the same time, if we were to borrow from the Silicon Valley school of think- ing, the potential for failure shouldn't stop us. In fact, despite the risks, we should run headlong into it. Part of the process Te root of Silicon Valley's "Fail Fast, Fail Often" motto is the technology industry's need to innovate quickly and stay com- petitive. (Te many incarnations of the iPhone are just one example.) Te strategy goes something like this: Design a proto- type. Instead of making sure it is absolute- ly perfect, test it—ideas aren't meant to Fear of failure holds many of us back. But if we heed the Silicon Valley motto— "Fail Fast, Fail Often"— we may be better able to achieve our goals and advance our careers. Accelerate We Mean Business >