This is the third and final article in our 3-part blog series, The Hidden Superpowers of Failure, featuring HDO Faculty Member, Becca North.
Last month we learned how failure can reveal more of our originality—helping us to better see and trust our truth and giving us a shot of courage to express it. This month we’ll discuss how originality, in turn, fuels innovation and happiness.
Originality Fuels Innovation and Happiness
There is a scene in the movie Walk the Line in which the head of Sun Records recording studio offers Johnny Cash one shot to get a record deal. At the time, Cash sold appliances to support his family, but he wanted to make a living playing music. Desperate to get a record deal, he and his band played a well-known gospel song they thought the studio would approve of. The studio head cut the band off in less than a minute and yelled at them for playing such a hackneyed tune. Then he turned to Johnny Cash and asked him what he would play if he was dying in the road and had one last song. Cash played “Folsom Prison Blues,” and he was offered a record deal on the spot.
Though the real story likely did not unfold in that exact way, the scene speaks to how failure reveals originality. First, desperate to succeed, Cash took a cautious approach. He played a song that he thought the studio would approve of even though it was not his style. Then he failed, and failing somehow pulled out all the stops. It freed him to play what he wanted to play. It extracted his originality. And his originality got him the record deal.
Originality is the seed of innovation. Innovation could mean coming up with a new idea or creating a new product. It also could mean taking a new approach to an existing issue or devising a novel solution to an old problem. Originality is what generates new ideas, and new ideas drive innovation. As Einstein said, “It is important to foster individuality for only the individual can produce the new ideas.” And new ideas change the world. Innovation drives progress. Many writers and economists have made the case that originality and inventiveness are especially valuable in today’s world, and especially important skills for success in the twenty-first century economy.
When Taylor Swift received the Innovator Award at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards, she not only encouraged people to give themselves “permission to fail,” she also talked about the value of originality. She didn’t use the word “originality,” but what she said spoke to how her originality has fueled her innovation.
“I never a single time woke up in the morning and thought: ‘You know what I’m going to do today? I’m going to go innovate some stuff. Things need to be innovated, and I’m gonna be the one that does it.’ Um, but what I did do was try to make the right decision for me at the time whether or not it had ever been successfully done before. And I think maybe that might be the key because oftentimes in any industry people are looking for a precedent or, you know, data that shows this idea is a good one or a feasible one. People want an example of something working before. But I think the coolest ideas or moves or choices are the new ones, the ones that set a new precedent.” (Applause)
Drawing on psychological research, as well as philosophy and poetry, I make the case in the book that expressing originality also fosters happiness. For example, research in psychology has shown that pursuing intrinsically rewarding goals as opposed to focusing on extrinsic rewards or demands is deeply satisfying. When people’s goals are aligned with their deeper needs and values, psychological well-being is enhanced. In the job context, workers who pursued goals that employed their greatest strengths reported not only higher job satisfaction but also higher life satisfaction. The philosopher John Stuart Mill argued in 1859 that originality is “one of the principal ingredients of human happiness.”
Why Care About Failure in the Context of Work Life?
Circling back first to the hypothetical scenario of someone who is not very satisfied with work—asking what do I even really want to do? What kind of work I would find fulfilling? Failures can answer those questions. By revealing more of your originality, failures reveal valuable clues about what you really want to do. And failures offer a shot of courage to act on what you find—expressing more of your originality—which fosters creativity, innovation, and happiness. Consider thinking back on previous failures in your work life and reflecting on what they revealed about what really excites you and interests you and what doesn’t. For example, if you didn’t get a job promotion you wanted, consider what truths failure revealed. How could that information inform how you want to move forward?
Circling back next to the hypothetical scenario of someone who is very satisfied with work—asking how can I find a way to be more creative and innovative in my work? Failures can answer those questions too. Failures, by revealing greater originality and offering a shot of courage to express it, fuel creativity and innovation, as well as happiness. Here too you may reflect on previous failures at work and consider what they revealed about what you really think and want to say, as opposed to what you were putting forth for other reasons, like others’ expectations or pressures. For example, if you presented a proposal and it flopped, you may consider what that failure revealed about which ideas you feel most strongly about and which are less essential.
In both cases, as I said in the first blog post, an answer is to leverage your failures.
Failure as a Catalyst for Growth
This blog series has highlighted some of the benefits of failure. The book uncovers many more. A major theme of the benefits is that failure, while painful, is a catalyst for growth. It may actually be essential in helping us realize our full potential. Successes, for all of their sparkle and glory, have downsides too. Successes, for example, do not promote much reflection or reevaluation or learning, like failures do. They encourage stability and provide momentum to stay on course. Perhaps most importantly, research shows that failures are better catalysts for change and growth than success. Failures enrich us in precisely the ways successes do not. Success and failure actually have distinct, yet complementary strengths. Successes fortify us. Failures can transform us.
There is no growth though, no transformation, without acknowledging failure. When we hide failure or bury it, failing to acknowledge it even to ourselves, we lose the potential growth benefits. We experience the pain just the same, but we leave the value on the table. It is like going through tremendous hardship to find a hidden treasure chest and then not opening the treasure chest. So, building on the encouragement and examples of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, let’s talk more about failure.
I tried and failed three times in my efforts to get an interview with the brilliant, inspiring writer Toni Morrison for my book. Though we never talked, she generously offered a powerful insight through her longtime assistant: failure is information. When we hide our failures, we forego the information. Being more open about failure—first with ourselves and then possibly with others—will better position us to leverage failures. It will help us harness them in a way that could lead to greater creativity and innovation, as well as happiness and fulfillment, in both our work and personal lives.
Continuing your reflections on failure at work…
As you think about your work and your organization, who can you talk with constructively about your failures?
How might engaging in this reflection serve you in the context of your work?
Sign up for Becca North’s next HDO course:
Creativity, Failure and Innovation
Learn how to build a creative culture and develop an understanding of how our perceptions of failure affect creativity and our ability to innovate.
START: Sept 26, 2024
LOCATION: UT AUSTIN
Dr. North is a researcher and author in the field of psychology, and her research is in the area of happiness and well-being—human flourishing, more broadly. A big question in her research is: How can negative experiences foster positive psychological change? She wrote a book that integrates science and stories to investigate the relationship between failure and success and challenge the prevailing view of failure. The book, Your Hidden Superpowers: How the Whole Truth of Failure Can Change Our Lives, illuminates how the way we view failure affects how we live, lead, decide, innovate, connect, and dare.
Her interdisciplinary background, including expertise in psychology, public policy, and history, informs her approach to research and teaching. She also taught for three years in Compton, California, as a corps member of Teach For America. Currently, she teaches at Huston-Tillotson University, an HBCU in Austin, in addition to teaching at the University of Texas, and is pursuing an innovative, multi-disciplinary research project that aims to contribute to the healing of our divided nation by starting in Texas.