Embracing the
F-Word
Essential Questions:
What impact can a failure have on you?
How can you turn a failure into a success?
Why is resilience important for an inventor/engineer?
Failure can be a total bummer, and can happen for all sorts of reasons, but just because you fail does not mean you should give up.
When you hear the word “FAILURE”, what comes to mind? What feelings surface? Failure is something adults face often; however, how a person responds to failure, and more importantly, how one goes on to succeed, may be based on how they practice failing when they are younger.
It is seemingly ridiculous to point out that no famous engineer became great when they failed in their mission and that is where the story ended. But it may not be emphasized enough that every great engineer has experienced failure. In fact, failure, in essence, plays a vital role in the engineering design process.
The engineering design process, shown above, organizes the progression from a problem to a tangible solution that is followed by professional engineers.
For the purpose of this discussion we will key in on the pivotal moment during the engineering design process; testing. The precise problem has been honed in, the design has been considered and created, and now the moment of truth arrives when faith may become sight…. But your device fails. Your bridge doesn’t hold the required weight. Your airplane can not take off in the required distance. Your goal is outside your reach.
Now what? Defeated. Spent. Done. Over it.
However, the Engineering Design Process includes this obstacle as a part of the testing phase. The test is conducted and the results are evaluated. The evaluation allows for consideration of where improvements are needed because the next step is to redesign! The process repeats here—build, test/evaluate, redesign – until a great, improved solution is found. Without the failure, new and possibly the best solutions may never have been possible or realized.
So! What should we remember when something we does fails (beautifully!)??
1. Look for the Good- By highlighting what worked in a design, you may illuminate methods that were used there that may help in the areas that did not work so well.
2. Growth Mindset - Talk in terms of what “needs improvement” and not what “failed”, “was wrong/bad”/etc. This comes from what is called having a “growth mindset” where situations are framed to inspire constructive action rather than a “fixed mindset” that is focused on judging.
3. Necessitate Effort - there IS a difference between failing after genuine effort and failing by not trying . Failure is only beneficial if great effort was made leading up to it as well as actively learning from mistakes made. Only then is the success that hopefully follows real as well as gratifying!
So... time for you to choose a failure or failed inventor and look into the benefits that came out of it...