Technical article
#Failnight
“If you want to avoid mistakes, you won’t be innovative. In the end, that can lead to a company’s failure.” Business psychologist Michael Frese has been researching the culture of error in companies since 1985 at the Research Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Lüneburg and the National University of Singapore. When he began his research on errors, he heard the same statement from most companies: “Mistakes don’t happen here.” Which, of course, wasn’t true—people simply didn’t talk about mistakes.
For a long time, making mistakes was a taboo subject in the professional world
On the one hand, executives and management showed no tolerance for mistakes; on the other hand, employees themselves were afraid of being “punished” because of the “zero-error culture,” so mistakes were covered up or even blamed on others.
Over the past few decades, there has been a shift in thinking—major players such as the U.S. tech giants Amazon and Google have even incorporated an open approach to mistakes into their corporate philosophies.
Why is it good to make mistakes?
And why should companies actively develop their own culture of openness about mistakes?
To test ideas that may not seem very likely at first but are nonetheless feasible, we need a culture that allows for failure. To create the improbable, we must stray from the path of the probable. If something new is to emerge, we must explore new avenues.
In Malaysia, even elementary school students attend invention fairs. The goal is to show them that anything is possible—and that persistent experimentation leads to breakthroughs. The aim is to help elementary school students overcome their fear of failure at an early age, so that they face no limits later in life.
1,000 failed attempts before the light bulb was invented
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, reportedly tried more than 1,000 times without success to develop a market-ready light bulb, and said of himself: “I haven’t failed. I now know 1,000 ways not to build a light bulb.”
Further development and innovation inevitably involve mistakes
In a healthy culture of learning from mistakes, people can learn from the mistakes of others. The foundation for this is a trusting relationship among colleagues across all levels of a company’s hierarchy. According to Michael Frese, learning from mistakes can lead to greater innovation, and an open approach to mistakes can foster a sense of community within the company.
KBC actively encourages dealing with mistakes
Last Thursday, the first KBC #failnight took place at the Munich office. Organizer Maximilian Leicht (Director at KBC) said, “Every single one of us makes mistakes in our daily work. And that’s not a bad thing. The important thing is not to repeat them, but to talk about them and learn from them. Because when we share our experiences, we can benefit from others’ insights and avoid making the same mistake next time.”
The KBC Hero's Journey
True to the motto: “No success stories, no glossy slides, and no self-congratulation,” #failnight gave every colleague the chance to share their mistakes in a relaxed setting. Maximilian Leicht chose the “hero’s journey” format, familiar from storytelling, for this purpose. Each participant was asked in advance to choose a “cartoon hero” and give them a name and three specific traits. The “heroes” symbolized the lessons learned from the mistakes made. This allowed participants to discuss a negative event in a relaxed atmosphere while simultaneously focusing on the experience gained from the mistake. Afterward, they worked together to brainstorm solutions for the respective mistakes through mutual discussion.
“It’s important to us that younger colleagues, in particular, realize that mistakes aren’t a big deal and that they happen even to more experienced colleagues. At KBC, we talk openly about them and learn from our mistakes together,” Maximilian Leicht concluded.