KEY POINTS:
Failure can be a bitter word, something to be avoided, sometimes at the expense of taking risks that can lead to success.
As basketball player Michael Jordan once said: "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted
to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
Stewart Forsyth, Director of FX Consultants, specialists in productivity improvement, says successful people are likely to have tried more things. Some of them have stuck, others have missed.
"They are likely to have extracted learning from each experience, which then gives future leverage and increases the chance of success."
Forsyth points out that even Sir Edmund Hillary did not succeed at everything.
Failure could be important because it inspires humility.
"It's a learning opportunity. If this doesn't work, an alternative might work, or maybe it's time to give this away and try another line.
"It checks out the limits. If you try to minimise failure it is likely that you will do safe things and that really limits the innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities."
Forsyth says successful people can usually take criticism.
"More successful people are more likely to ask for feedback.
"It helps to reflect later and try to take out the lessons. There is going to be pain, because most criticism is going to challenge our picture of ourselves.
"It's useful to thank the person, so they don't hold back next time, and also to reinforce to yourself that you want to get improvement out of this."
He warns that narcissistic people don't always love criticism.
They often interpret it as a threat, and can respond aggressively.
There is good evidence that positive people also blame the context and timing, rather than their performance, for failure.
"So long as that doesn't get in the way of learning, that's okay. Usually failure is not just the person so it's good to get that in perspective. It is part of learning - where and when do I do this again?"
However, Dr Dianne Gardner, senior lecturer in psychology at Massey University, who wrote her PhD thesis on "Learning from Errors", says she does not like the word "failure".
She says to learn you don't have to fail disastrously, you just need to learn to manage small obstacles.
"Certainly, you can grow from failure, if you believe you can overcome it."
There are strategies and resources to help you manage obstacles.
She says there are three things to look at: error management, self-efficacy and resilience.
Self-efficacy is the belief in your ability to do something.
One way to develop this is by finding role models. "It is about learning to be realistic - watch others. Learn from their mistakes too."
Error management is not about falling off a horse and getting back on, it's about taking on the risks and chances that you are able to rectify.
There are two types of companies, she says.
There are those who try to guide people through to mastery without making mistakes. "This works quickly but it means employees have no clue when sticky situations arise."
Then there are those companies that assume employees are going to make mistakes, and those mistakes are managed.
"They're seen as a chance to learn."
For example, think about learning how to use a computer, Gardner says. The company that allows mistakes will give employees the chance to learn and see errors as an opportunity to learn. "They encourage people to make mistakes. It takes a longer time to train them in this way but they become extremely good and don't become unstuck with one wrong keystroke."
Research has shown that companies that don't tolerate mistakes develop a culture of blame and cover-ups.
In the end it's the company that manages mistakes effectively that does much better in all ways, Gardner says.
One of the reasons a lot of people are not prepared to risk mistakes is they are afraid of looking stupid.
"It's about their professional credibility. If you've done very well in one area, you don't want to look weak in another."
Yet, the key to success is to keep on going and experimenting. "It's not about blame, it's about learning when things go wrong and having something in place so a mistake is never a disaster. There must be a plan B."
A good thing to do is look into what you blame for your mistakes.
"Many people will just shrug and say, 'Well, I'm just no good at that'. It's far healthier to say, 'I'm okay, but the system is tough, the manual is rubbish but I'm able to learn'."
Gardner also says it's problematic if you blame others for everything. "You do need to see things as 50 per cent your fault, so you can learn."
She stresses that part of the issue is understanding risk.
"We humans are very bad at identifying real risk. For example, what's more likely to kill us - a car accident or a nuclear explosion? Which do we worry about more?
"We need to look at what makes something particularly threatening. What's the risk of taking a new job? What are the consequences - see what can go wrong.
"Is it better to stay where you are and wait for a promotion or is that unlikely to happen and the new job is a new opportunity?
"People tend to be better at seeing problems than opportunities and are risk-averse. Assess things properly. What are the real risks and what are the opportunities and which outweighs which?
"Grab your chances. You can spend your life in a comfort zone but that may make you not interested and not interesting."
