From bad customer service experiences to oil spills to mean-spirited political attack ads, each day failures impact our communities. And, each day, leaders at Telus, BP and/or named Michael Ignatieff try to dodge failure or, even worse, turn it into a success. Role Model Jon Stewart would call the latter strategy “polishing a turd” and, for the record, neither ignorance or turd-polishing are particularly effective strategies for making the world a better place.

Canadian NGO, Engineers Without Borders (EWB), has an innovative approach to failure. They openly acknowledge all of their shortcomings in their Failure Reports. After all, innovating, creating and risk taking involve failing from time to time. Many players in the international non-profit community are championing EWB for its brave new position. This being said, a semi-recent article from The Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog (posted by Madeleine Bunting, who seems really nice) also reflects the dangers of openly admitting failure. Ms. Bunting cites Bill Easterly – a gentleman who wrote a horribly titled book and some other things about not helping poor people – as one of many risky reasons for EWB’s gambit; putting your failures out there indicts your industry/sector/field for all of its failures. And, understandably, people can take this the wrong way.

Three Good Things About Failing

1. It makes you humble. Look at all these world leaders who have admitted failure, found humility and, perhaps, grown more popular and respected because of it!

2. Humility makes people feel comfortable. Humility inspires empathy, which breeds collaboration instead of competition. When people take responsibility for their errors – in my opinion – an atmosphere of trust, compassion and, ideally, let’s-share-best-practices-so-that-we-don’t-have-to-feel-so-crappy-about-the-same-mistakes-again emerges; this could happen within an organization, community-of-practice or, well, anywhere that is willing to admit mistakes and learn from them. Are you listening, Steve, Mike, Jack, and Gilles?

3. Failures are “Gifts” of Learning. Or at least so-says Former President & CEO of Proctor & Gamble, AG Lafley, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review: “What’s the single biggest reason that leaders stop developing and growing? They stop becoming adaptable; they stop becoming agile. It’s Darwin’s theory. When you stop learning, you stop developing and you stop growing. That’s the end of a leader.”

I’m a Failure!

Some of my key personal and professional embarassments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Scored on my own basket during a grade eight basketball game in front of a packed home crowd during lunch time.
• Got 60% my very first History essay.
• Single-handedly jeopardized the relationship between Fairmont Hotels and Camosun College.
• Accepted responsibilities as an Emcee without asking permission from my boss and, well, cinged that relationship.
• Poorly conceptualized and marketed the Showcase Event for the inaugural year of the MM-ECM Community Business Project, resulting in its cancellation.

How are you a Failure?

Look. I think you’re great. But coming to terms with sucking is important for moving forward towards success. Just ask the Chicago Blackhawks.

So, with this in mind, what are some of your greatest failures and what did you learn from them? If it helps, I can go into detail about some of mine.