Why failure is essential to progress
Science and perfection
It is easy to blame scientists for not getting things right the first time. Debates about COVID pandemic decisions often focus on what went wrong: masking, the virus’s origins, vaccination and mRNA vaccines, distancing, and transmission. Blame is easier after years of data. But this reflects a misunderstanding of science. We expect answers to be correct from the start, when science learns as it evolves. What seems possible one year can prove wrong the next. The earth is flat. The sun goes around the earth. Flies arise from spontaneous generation. All wrong. More recently, we assumed gene expression depended directly on DNA changes; epigenetics showed that life experiences can change gene activity without altering DNA.
Science knows it may be wrong and accepts that possibility. That is the basis for continued inquiry. Science is rarely satisfied with what we know; it seeks more knowledge and accepts that yesterday’s conclusions may be incomplete. That is why we can trust it. Science does not claim absolutes. It keeps working toward the closest possible version of the truth.
Yet society wants absolutes. We want “the” answer. People have asked me for the “trick” to coaching or the “recipe” for perfect decision-making. We do not accept failures or mistakes. One VP of Sales once told me, “We absolutely welcome and accept failures,” then added, “but people better not make another one.” Find me someone who has never made a mistake—or even someone who has not made one in the past week. The most dangerous mistakes are the ones left unacknowledged, unreviewed, and unused for growth. That is what I respect about science: it not only admits mistakes, it seeks them, always trying to get closer to right.
The way society treats scientific evolution—and attacks decisions made with the information available at the time—is counterproductive. We expect perfection from the very people devoted to finding better answers. To borrow from Adam Grant’s Think Again, we often accept preaching (“I tell you I am right”), prosecuting (“I tell you, you are wrong”), and politicizing (“I tell you what you want to hear”) when the scientific approach must always be: “This is what I think today based on what we know, but I am open to better ideas and will keep looking for better answers.”
In the end, science is not weakened by revision; it is strengthened by it. Progress depends on humility, curiosity, and the courage to say, “We know more now than we did before.” When we prosecute people for decisions made with yesterday’s knowledge, we discourage the very risk-taking and course correction that help humanity move forward.
The business case for imperfection
In my last post on the reality of scientific progress, I concluded that science is not weakened by revision; it is strengthened by it. Progress depends on humility, curiosity, and the courage to say, “We know more now than we did before.”
Put simply, science can be right one day and wrong the next. We must accept that if we want to move forward. Failure is not the opposite of progress; it is often the path toward it. As Thomas Edison famously said after countless attempts to invent the light bulb: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
I spent 12 years in pharma and another 25 consulting on talent development. In my experience, most businesses tolerate the idea of failure far better than failure itself. They may acknowledge that mistakes are part of life, but missed sales targets, implementation errors, disappointing clinical results, or unmet expectations are often treated as unacceptable. Eventually, someone is expected to pay for the mistake. And to make this acceptable, even necessary, many business leaders will invoke that in the wild, mistakes can be fatal. But nature does not punish to make a point, protect egos or blame others for its own benefit. Consequences exist but they are not political or serve ill-advised purpose.
The result is a corporate culture that quietly encourages people to hide errors, assign blame, avoid risk, preserve the status quo, and, eventually, drift toward obsolescence. Nokia, BlackBerry, Kodak, and countless others remind us of what happens when invention, creativity, and courage are pushed aside. Failures and mistakes do happen and must serve progress for all.
In another publication (https://aseret-uido.com/accountability-as-part-of-a-mindset-leading-to-real-success/), I argue that accountability depends directly on psychological safety. We need accountability. Organizations need people willing to do what is necessary – ethically and legally – for a team, group, or company to advance and thrive. But when failure is unacceptable, people cannot be truly accountable without putting their safety, livelihood, relationships, and sense of self at risk.
Progress in business happens when we take chances, collaborate across boundaries, and candidly examine what worked and what did not. To win, we must be willing to lose, because losing is often what gives us the courage to try something different. Bell Labs developed the first silicon solar cell in 1954, yet the United States now trails far behind China in solar panel technology and production. Penicillin took nearly 20 years to move from Fleming’s discovery to mass production, where it saved thousands of soldiers’ lives in World War II. Instant gratification is a mirage we must move beyond if we want our industries – and our people – to thrive, discover, and innovate.
Organizations that punish every stumble teach people to stand still. Those that learn from failure give their people permission to be honest, accountable, and brave enough to build what does not yet exist.
The political cost of certainty
In earlier posts, I argued that science can be right one day and wrong the next. That is not weakness; it is progress. Science understands this and accepts it. The scientific method is built on the willingness to question what we believe, test better explanations, and accept that new discoveries may overturn old theories. The same acceptance of error and failure must exist in business and invention. Companies must be willing to fail, learn, and advance because of those failures. The third prong is politics.
In the United States, politics is largely shaped by two competing instincts. One side leans progressive; the other leans conservative. Policies are often designed either to control business practices or to free markets from constraint. One side tends to protect workers; the other tends to protect corporations. One believes government must oversee and regulate; the other believes government has grown too large and should get out of the way. Both perspectives can be right, and both can be wrong. Too much regulation can slow progress and create enormous costs. Too little intervention can discourage investment in science and long-term innovation because it favors only what produces immediate returns.
More damaging is the inability of either side to admit mistakes. Because political leaders must satisfy their base, remain visibly conservative or clearly progressive, and win the next election, politics rarely rewards collaboration. Helping the other side look reasonable is treated as weakness. This is the opposite of the scientific approach, where failure is not an embarrassment to hide but evidence to examine. The most effective and viable businesses favor collaboration, teamwork and constant innovation.
Why address politics at all? Because politics shapes whether a society encourages risk, curiosity, and long-term investment – or punishes them. Over the last few decades, the United States has often originated powerful ideas but failed to develop, scale, or sustain them as effectively as others. We point to the iPhone and Tesla, but the iPhone is manufactured largely in China, and Tesla depends heavily on battery supply chains rooted in Asia. Internet infrastructure, high-speed rail, mobile payments, electric vehicles, public transit, smartphones, and many other life-changing innovations were either invented or pioneered in the United States, then developed more aggressively elsewhere. In many cases, politics is part of the reason. We either overprotect ourselves from abuse in ways that burden honest innovators, or we invest only in what creates quick wealth, with too little patience for long-term discovery. We have become risk averse. We struggle to admit mistakes. We narrow our horizons. And the price we pay may be enormous, even if it is hard to measure.
Progress requires more than brilliant scientists and courageous businesses; it requires a political culture humble enough to learn. When politics cannot admit error, it does not protect the future. It protects the past.
The boring work that builds the future
I discovered a fascinating book by happy accident. Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, is a powerful reminder of how much better life has become, and why. It traces the hard-won lessons behind progress, points to practical solutions, and confronts some of the ways science has gone – and is still going – wrong. I want to use it as another reason to address a key aspect of our lives, one that is too often overlooked: taking risks, accepting mistakes, and learning from both. Fundamental research is the area I would like to visit today. To many people, it looks boring, wasteful, or detached from real life – the domain of eccentrics, outsiders, and antisocial weirdos. Yet, as Patricia Pitcher argues in Artists, Craftsmen, and Technocrats, we tend to prize results, outcomes, measurements, and immediate usefulness above the deeper work that makes those outcomes possible.
Take the iPhone. We often elevate Steve Jobs as the lone genius behind it. That takes nothing away from his brilliance, but he could not have created the iPhone without decades of essential contributions from people pursuing ideas that once seemed impractical, obscure, or even absurd.
The transistor was invented in 1947. Lithium-ion batteries emerged from research in the 1970s. Cellular networks began taking shape in the late 1970s. Touchscreens were first imagined in the 1960s, and GPS technology traces back to the 1970s. These are only a few of the scientific advances required to create the device we now treat as obvious.
The same is true in medicine. How many people are now treating diabetes or losing weight because of GLP-1 drugs? That story began with a researcher studying the saliva of a venomous lizard because of its ability to fast for months. At the time, it may have looked like an odd curiosity. Today, it is changing lives.
As a society, we too often forget the obscure individuals behind the progress we enjoy. We mock their questions, dismiss their obsessions, and undervalue their contributions—until their work becomes part of everyday life. Then we call it normal.
We easily overlook the efforts invested in figuring out how Nature does what it does. It is true that countless investigations into obscure realities have failed to produce immediately applicable knowledge. At times, the “failed” findings lead to nothing. In other cases, they become relevant years after their discovery as a “dead end”. Boolean algebra is a good example. A logical system using the very simple “true” and “false” in mathematics. It took 100 years for the concept to become relevant and generate the invention of digital computers and microchips.
Fundamental research faces more skepticism than almost any other human endeavor. Failed attempts to explain natural phenomena are common. But if we measure its value only by immediate results, or only by whether the findings confirm the original premise, we put progress at risk. When we treat failed experiments, wrong turns, or unexpected results as wasted effort, we are not saving resources; we are divesting from the future. Science has failed often, but because scientists kept asking questions, testing assumptions, and learning from those failures, we now enjoy a quality of life unimaginable just 100 years ago. That willingness to adjust is the scientific mindset: accepting that what seems true today may not be tomorrow.
Perhaps that is the quiet genius of fundamental science: it asks questions long before the world understands why they matter. It gives us no guarantee, no quick reward, and often no applause. But somewhere in that uncertainty, someone is building the future we will one day take for granted.
Not every failure deserves applause.
That distinction raises the question readers often ask next: if failure can drive progress, does that mean all failures deserve patience, forgiveness, or praise? The answer is no. The value of failure depends on why it happened, what risk was visible beforehand, and whether anyone had the courage to learn from it.
When I argue that we must accept and learn from errors or failures, I am not defending reckless judgment, misguided intent, or careless action. A good failure begins with a responsible attempt to improve something: a process, a principle, a product, a treatment, or any effort meant to support clients, strengthen a company, or help a team succeed ethically. It remains a good failure only if we learn from it and use that learning to improve. New treatment options tested on the basis of early research fail often. We rarely see those failures, but they are part of how better solutions eventually emerge.
Corporations avoid failure because it costs money, reduces profitability, threatens reputation, and can damage perceptions of quality. But avoiding every possible failure can create far worse outcomes. It can hinder progress, stall discovery, and intensify the very risks leaders hope to avoid. Mistakes are not the main issue. The real problem is making mistakes for the wrong reasons, then refusing to learn from them. Nokia, BlackBerry, Kodak, Sears, and Blockbuster are examples of companies that stopped challenging themselves and tried too hard to avoid failure. In the end, that avoidance became its own kind of failure.
Failures that come from poor planning, impulsive action, or the conscious dismissal of available evidence are bad failures. The Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986 is a painful example of a predictable failure. Groupthink, siloed decision-making, image management, dismissal of evidence, and other warning signs all contributed to a disaster that could have been avoided. Launching despite available knowledge about the O-rings led to the loss of lives and damaged NASA’s reputation and public support. The tragedy did focus attention on the O-ring issue, but that lesson did not require catastrophe. That is a bad failure.
Chernobyl is another example of a failure that should have been avoided. So was the Titanic. In both cases, warning signs existed, and people in positions of responsibility failed to act on them. Hubris, complacency, and deference to power are often the foundations of awful decisions and avoidable disasters.
Many failures do produce results that are much more positive than negative. The discovery of penicillin was caused by a lack of attention to possible contamination which was not very clear in those days and could hardly be predicted. Coca-Cola was originally created as a medicinal product. The Berlin Wall came down when it did because incorrect information was given to the population. A mistake that accelerated the movement of liberation and changed people’s lives for the better very quickly.
By definition, a bad failure is one that has evident negative outcomes putting people’s livelihood at risk, and which outcomes are dismissed or consciously overlooked. Another variation is a failure based on illegal, unethical or intentionally harmful intent. A “good” failure comes from the intent to help, contribute to growth or add value. Edison’s intent was to develop a device that would change people’s lives for the better.
Failing is not the problem. The value of failure depends on why it happens, what risk was visible beforehand, and whether anyone has the courage to learn from it.
Progress can be messy. Moving humanity forward implies mistakes and failure at the beginning. As we learn from failure, we move in the right direction, or at least in a “better” direction. As much as we must celebrate success, we must also celebrate failure. We do not do this blindly or excuse negligence, we accept failure for the opportunities it opens.
If we want better science, stronger organizations, wiser politics, and more durable innovation, we must build cultures that can admit error without collapsing into blame. Rewarding curiosity leads to new learning which in turn helps us adapt to various situations. Accepting mistakes encourages accountability which promotes our determination to continuously improve and aim for some form of excellence. Our future depends on our courage to fall and determination to get back on our feet to evolve.
How much of the time allocated for job interviews is spent on trainable skills rather than unchanging values and traits? It is completely reasonable to hire people on account of their immediate ability to perform tasks. Employers often open a job because the need is immediate. As such, teams are looking to find a person that will be able to perform very quickly. There is nothing wrong with that. What becomes problematic is to put too much value on skills, and too little on values, traits and synergy.