Crank Up Creativity and Morale With a Failure Week

I’ve written quite a bit about failure and the learning opportunity it presents; the Wimbledon High School in London takes this idea a step further with its regular “Failure Week” event.

Failure Week involves assemblies, workshops and activities for students that teach them to embrace and rebound from failure. For example, one speaker at this year’s festivities was Nick Carter, who attempted — and failed — to climb the summit of Mount Everest.

“The girls need to learn how to fail well — and how to get over it and cope with it,” said Heather Hanbury, the headmistress at Wimbledon, to the BBC. “Fear of failing can be really crippling and stop the girls doing things they really want to do. The pupils are hugely successful but can sometimes overreact to failure even though it can sometimes be enormously beneficial to them.” Sound familiar, anyone?

Cutting-edge educational institutions are increasingly adopting strategies that translate beautifully to business. Earlier this week, I wrote about the achievement culture at the Morningside Academy in Seattle; there, students get daily report cards to keep both students and educators accountable. How could your team use a similar event to Failure Week to supercharge creativity?