I have a very geeky 9 year old daughter; there really is no doubt about that. One day last spring, a school friend had transgressed in some way in the class and her “punishment” was to stay inside at recess and clean out the pencil sharpener. My daughter offered to give up her recess and help her, not really because she is such a loyal friend, but because she was so excited at the idea of taking the pencil sharpener to pieces and then putting it together again. She woke up that morning and declared, “Today is going to be the best day ever, I get to take the pencil sharpener to bits, clean it and put it back together!” To my knowledge, she had never actually taken a pencil sharpener to pieces before and had no real knowledge of what it would take to put it back together again. But she was totally, blissfully unperturbed by the almost certain failure she would encounter before perhaps, by chance, landing upon the correct assembly…or not. I can't remember whether she ever succeeded in her task, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that she was undeterred by the prospect of possible failure. And this fearlessness in the face of likely failure is one of the reasons that I believe that my daughter will grow up to be a very innovative person.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the US and the world needs to be more innovative in this new world economy. It is equally clear that the US is in real danger of not only losing traditionally left-brained and factory line jobs to China and India, to name but a few of the growing outsourcing destinations, but is now beginning to lose its much vaulted innovative edge. As this New York Times piece lays out, the “United States ranked sixth among 40 countries and regions, based on 16 indicators of innovation and competitiveness.” And there’s no doubt in my mind that failures in our education system rank high in the US fall from innovation grace. “What skills do children need to be innovative” is an increasingly written about topic and President Obama recently launched a campaign, “Educate to Innovate” to address this very issue.
A lot of competing theories abound in the innovation field, but there is at least one very clear theme that seems to be almost an unchallenged assumption: you cannot have innovation without failure. Fail fast and fail often.