Whatif…. It wasn’t “win or lose” but “win or learn”?

“It’s ok to fail” sounds so great in theory…. but in practice… Yikes.

From the Andon cord at Toyota to the concept of psychological safety, the idea that we need to create cultures where it’s ok to point out and to make mistakes is pervasive (and justifiable). We do not want a “sweep it under the rug” model because that’s how bad actions get hidden and unethical actions emerge. 

And yet, the “win or lose” mindset still dominates. From playgrounds to boardrooms, if you’re not first, you’re last (thank you, Ricky Bobby) is underlying much of the mindset we bring to the table. Part of this is because most of us have an almost visceral reaction to the word failure. And “making mistakes” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Failure and even mistakes seems finite and negative. I don’t want to fail and I don’t want to make mistakes and no matter how much you tell me that it’s ok there is no way I’m going to ever embrace that.

Making mistakes and finding failures actually leads to learning. Whatif we rebrand the “win or lose” mindset to “win or learn”?

Learning. Ooh I love that word. 

I love the idea of learning partly because I did not learn how to learn until well into high school and college. I am an excellent memorizer. And it turns out you can get through a lot of our education system with a good memory, some basic logic skills, and following the rules of the system.  But real learning isn’t just about acquiring and memorizing knowledge. Learning is the outcome of curiosity and a willingness to look at everything in new ways. 

Curiosity is beautiful. It’s enticing. It’s romantic and sexy. Curiosity is an action and a process, not simply an acquisition of “things” (knowledge).  And when you are curious everything becomes something learned.  How can I visualize T accounts in a way that better helps me understand debits and credits? If the Net Present Value was a superhero - what superhero would it be and why? If you compare Latin and French, you learn so much more about the French language and all of the sudden you can even read words you didn’t actually memorize. What must it have been like for this author to write this 1000 page novel —  to generate words to create a story that includes symbolism and metaphors? What might I learn about this topic and what might I learn about myself in the process of getting curious?

Once you open the door to curiosity, it is possible to get so lost that you don’t actually learn. How do you capture what you have learned in a way that helps you to continue to grow - not get stuck on exploring something the same away repeatedly?

This is where structure comes to support the process. A spreadsheet with ideas that you’ve collected. A journal where you write down your reactions to new ideas. A graphic representation of the things that have stuck with you most. A salon or other type of community gathering where you create a dialogue to expand your thinking even further. There’s not one right way to create structure to capture the learning from your curiosity. 

From a neuro-scientific perspective: curiosity allows you to live in your right hemisphere while structure allows you to live in your left hemisphere. Giving yourself the space to see the forest through the trees and then to catelogue the trees is a way to build up your corpus collasum and to create harmony in your brain.

So whatif… We rebrand “win or lose” to “win or learn”? How might this shape your goals, your actions, and your feelings about them?