I recently ran across Susan Berkeley’s Improv-A-Mama blog, which – like the one you hold in your hands now – relates improv concepts to issues of Daily Life. The particular post I read cited a New York Times article that makes some intriguing observations about the topic of “mistakes,” the subject of one of my recent posts.
In the article, the author, Alina Tugend, remarks on our society’s basic ambivalence toward mistakes – the mixed message being, Learn from your mistakes, but don’t make them in the first place.
I was particularly struck by Tugend’s quoting of a management professor from Rutgers who makes a distinction between “intelligent failures” – mistakes from which we can learn – and “unintelligent failures” – mistakes we make (and often repeat) without taking away any lessons.
I think the distinction helps put a big “Yes And” on the ambivalence I noted above: YES, do make “intelligent mistakes” AND avoid the “unintelligent” kind.
But then again, there’s a paradox at work here: How can you know in advance what constitutes an inherently unintelligent mistake, that is, one that by its very nature precludes learning? After all, the whole concept of “weaving mistakes into the larger pattern” is based on the notion that it’s what you do after a mistake that determines whether it was really wrong – a “failure” – in the first place.
Well, in a perhaps futile effort to live up to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation about holding two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, I’m willing to live with the paradox for a while. But I think the Strengths-Based Development concept can help identify at least one example of an inherently unintelligent mistake.
I’m referring to the mistakes you make when you repeatedly try to work from your areas of weakness rather than from your areas of strength. If you put your strengths areas to the test – take risks, make some missteps, overreach either slightly or profoundly – you’re more likely to treat your errors as learning experiences. Working from strengths provides you with the basic motivation to push through the discomfort, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and ask “How can I do it differently next time?”
By contrast, how much can you really learn if you keep engaging in activities that primarily involve the exercise of your weaknesses? If you continually try to push uphill against your weaknesses, you might (as Peter Drucker said) improve from incompetence to mediocrity – but what lessons have you really learned, what skills have you leveraged, that can propel you to excellence? And what is the cost to your psyche when you find yourself sprawled in the dust? At that point, you’re likely to say to yourself, “I knew I was no good at this – and I proved it again!”
In the article, the author, Alina Tugend, remarks on our society’s basic ambivalence toward mistakes – the mixed message being, Learn from your mistakes, but don’t make them in the first place.
I was particularly struck by Tugend’s quoting of a management professor from Rutgers who makes a distinction between “intelligent failures” – mistakes from which we can learn – and “unintelligent failures” – mistakes we make (and often repeat) without taking away any lessons.
I think the distinction helps put a big “Yes And” on the ambivalence I noted above: YES, do make “intelligent mistakes” AND avoid the “unintelligent” kind.
But then again, there’s a paradox at work here: How can you know in advance what constitutes an inherently unintelligent mistake, that is, one that by its very nature precludes learning? After all, the whole concept of “weaving mistakes into the larger pattern” is based on the notion that it’s what you do after a mistake that determines whether it was really wrong – a “failure” – in the first place.
Well, in a perhaps futile effort to live up to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation about holding two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, I’m willing to live with the paradox for a while. But I think the Strengths-Based Development concept can help identify at least one example of an inherently unintelligent mistake.
I’m referring to the mistakes you make when you repeatedly try to work from your areas of weakness rather than from your areas of strength. If you put your strengths areas to the test – take risks, make some missteps, overreach either slightly or profoundly – you’re more likely to treat your errors as learning experiences. Working from strengths provides you with the basic motivation to push through the discomfort, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and ask “How can I do it differently next time?”
By contrast, how much can you really learn if you keep engaging in activities that primarily involve the exercise of your weaknesses? If you continually try to push uphill against your weaknesses, you might (as Peter Drucker said) improve from incompetence to mediocrity – but what lessons have you really learned, what skills have you leveraged, that can propel you to excellence? And what is the cost to your psyche when you find yourself sprawled in the dust? At that point, you’re likely to say to yourself, “I knew I was no good at this – and I proved it again!”
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