Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
In our competitive and fast-moving world, failure is now a certainty. And even though it may sound counterintuitive, instead of the traditional approach of automatically rejecting candidates who have experienced failure in their jobs, today, we should instead be considering “failure as the greatest teacher.”
We should begin considering those new hires who have proven they have learned from failure as an asset that will benefit the entire team. And because most hiring managers automatically reject those who have failed, you will simultaneously gain a competitive recruiting advantage over your talent competitors.
“The greatest teacher, failure is” (Yoda)
It’s Time To Place A Positive Value On Failure
For decades, hiring managers and recruiting leaders have been rejecting candidates who have failed at an important task, based on the premise that those who fail are losers. And as a result, very few candidates dare to mention their failures in their resumes or during interviews.
However, in my view, it’s time to reconsider this long-established prejudice, first, because of our fast-changing, highly technical world. In some cases (like AI and robotics), failure may now be occurring up to 50% more often than in the past. And second, in a world where many companies have to innovate just to survive. It’s time to acknowledge that failing, learning, and pivoting after each incremental failure is a key contributor to continuous improvement and innovation.
Success comes after failure.
So mistakes are the predecessors to both innovation and success.
Hiring Those That Learn From Failure Add Great Value To The Team
Most hiring managers and talent leaders don’t appreciate the many benefits of hiring those who Fail, Learn, and Pivot (I call these candidates FLPs). I have found that the top benefits of hiring them include:
- Hiring an FLP will increase your probability for quantum improvement – it’s an axiom in business that you can’t achieve great things without taking great risks. As noted by Robert F Kennedy, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” So if you want to dramatically improve your team’s chances for breakthrough improvement, you need multiple teammates who aren’t afraid of failure to help lead the effort. And because a current employee’s fear of failure can’t be overcome overnight. The best option is often to hire several FLP candidates.
- When your FLPs are continuously learning from failure, innovation will increase – a primary driver of innovation is learning from incremental failures. In fact, I have found that few great innovations occur without a series of failures preceding them. For example, James Dyson suffered through 5,126 failed prototypes before he landed on his first working, and now famous Dyson vacuum. It’s also important to note that creating a true innovation (versus continuous improvement) will likely require a higher number of increasingly painful and higher-risk failures. Primarily because the more dramatic the failure, the more you are likely to learn from it. It’s also true that FLP candidates are most likely to use a “failure analysis” tool to determine the root causes of failure. As one Genentech scientist put it, “We learned as much from our failures as our successes.” As an added benefit, FLP-led failing, learning, and pivoting will also improve your team’s rate of continuous improvement.
- Because an FLP doesn’t have a fear of failure, things will happen faster – Today, almost every company operates in a fast-moving environment that requires a continuous increase in speed and how fast things get done. And that means that the longer you wait because of indecision or fear of failure. The lower the risk, but also the lower return you will receive after the unnecessary delay. Fortunately, your FLP new hires won’t be afraid to move fast and fail because of their “bias toward action” and their much lower “fear of failure” (which incidentally is the #1 fear among employees). On the other side of the coin, many project managers will still be reluctant to admit failure on their own pet projects. In fact, a large biomedical firm once found it necessary to offer a $5,000 bonus to project leads willing to admit that their pet project had no future.
- After learning from failure, your FLP will know what not to do – after each failure, FLP new-hires will learn what’s working, but perhaps more importantly, what is not working. And of course, learning what to stop doing will save significant time and money. In fact, Thomas Edison once described his development process as one that didn’t just produce failures. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So the hiring of FLPs will allow you to more rapidly identify and eliminate things that no longer work.
- An FLP will help you forecast upcoming failures – a critical learning category for an FLP after they have experienced a significant failure. It is whether there were any early indicators or warning signs that might have helped the team realize that a minor problem was about to become more severe. This is important because preventing an upcoming problem will almost always cost less than solving it after it becomes a major problem. And because most FLPs who have experienced failures are automatically scanning the horizon for upcoming problems and adversities. They will be much more able to forecast or give you a heads-up about the team’s upcoming problems.
- Because an FLP encourages failure, team complacency can be avoided – most teams strive to win all the time. However, teams that never fail often have a different problem, which is becoming complacent and overconfident. So hiring an FLP who will continuously raise the bar to ensure their team fails more often, limiting the dangerous and expensive consequences of overconfidence and groupthink.
- Failure will force almost everyone to reflect – many employees who are afraid to fail have been guilty of “sticking their heads in the sand” and completely ignoring the existence of a failure. However, the FLP continually clamors about the importance of learning from failure. Almost everyone on the team will at least realize that they should take some time after each major failure to reflect on what went wrong and what went right. And by encouraging teammates to reflect, the FLP will help prevent the team from repeating the same mistake.
- An FLP will bring with them a higher expectation for more courage and honesty – in a corporate world where honesty, frankness, and transparency are frequently unachieved goals. The hiring of a single new FLP can help to raise the team’s expectation for courage and honesty. Because as a candidate, they were upfront about their failures. So if you want your team to be “brutally honest”, give added weight to those candidates who had the courage to admit their failures
Failure shouldn’t disqualify great candidates. However, it may build them.
Implementation Tips (For those who are considering hiring those who learn from failure)
For those considering a focus on hiring those who learn from failure, here are some implementation tips.
- Ways to identify if a candidate learns from failure – as mentioned previously, very few applicants will mention in their resume or LinkedIn profile that they have failed. So the first opportunity you will get to identify FLPs for a job that involves a great deal of failure will be by asking them during your first telephone screen. And of course, you can ask the traditional failure question at any time during their standard interviews, “Can you outline how in the past you have handled on-the-job failures?” And because FLPs in a job are continually looking out for upcoming problems that someone in that job will likely face. You can also ask them, “Please identify the top three upcoming problems that you will likely face if you get this job?”
- Because failing and learning might not be enough, ask them for examples on how they pivoted after a failure – because you will likely need to hire those who learn from failure, but have successfully pivoted after a major one. You should be asking your top candidates in jobs with high failure rates, “Please outline how you pivoted and snapped back after you went through your last major failure?” And because pivoting is a major leadership trait, how they answer this question may be an indication of their future leadership potential.
- Realize that FLP candidates will be easier to recruit and retain – it’s important to realize that learning and then bouncing back from failure might take a resiliency that can only be acquired through experience. So hiring FLPs (over-developing them) may be your most realistic option. And of course, it is not an approach without difficulty. Traditionally, most corporations have been reluctant to hire those who have failed. However, because there is less demand for these FLP candidates, your recruiters will encounter much less competition when recruiting them. And because it’s clear to these candidates that your company appreciates their ability to take and learn from risks. After they are hired, these FLPs will likely have a long tenure with your company.
- Admitting failure in a resume means that it is not an AI-generated resume – AI resume algorithms don’t, so far, include any mention of failure. When a candidate’s resume mentions one of their failures, there is a high probability that this resume was not written by an AI agent.
“Move fast and break things.”
This famous Facebook slogan is an acknowledgment that rapid failure (and learning from it) is essential for continuous innovation. So if you want to grow fast and dominate your industry as a startup, you too will need to encourage your employees to continually experiment, learn from their failures, and pivot to a better direction.
Final Thoughts
I acknowledge that it is certainly extremely difficult to change any established recruiting practice. Especially one that is so deeply ingrained, like “rejecting candidates that have failed”. However, despite the obvious difficulty, today’s world is already full of turmoil. To me, now is the opportune time to rethink and closely examine how we look at failure and those who learn from it.
Thank you for finding the time to read and share this article.
Notes for the reader
This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.
You can subscribe to his Aggressive Talent Management newsletter (which focuses on recruiting tools, current recruiting opportunities, and recruiting trends). Either here or by following him on LinkedIn.
