This past weekend I spent a few hours helping our Booz Allen team run a pilot of our digital leadership simulation with the Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School (TCPNS). Participants included members of their board, staff and membership. The simulation was originally conceived as a board game and has now been turned into a digital format that is played on iPads with a facilitator at each table. Each group competes for value points while having discussions about the decisions and risks they are currently facing or could face in the future.
Throughout the simulation, we take breaks to debrief what's going on. During the first debrief, one of the board members started talking about the importance of learning from failing or from when something doesn't go as planned. So I added "so we need to learn to lean into the fail."
Apparently, that one statement had a huge impact on the day! Lesley Romanoff, Director and Teacher at TPCNS, wrote this blog about the concept of leaning into failure rather than avoiding it like the plague.
The point is an interesting one. We teach our children to learn from failure. We teach them science experiments, and when something doesn't go right we explain that most of science experiments will not work but it leads you closer to the right answer.
And yet, as adults, failure is seen as a bad thing. Yes, we are told to learn from it and not make the same mistake twice, and yet it is still taboo to fail in the workplace, or at home, or with friends.
In the blog post by Lesley, she talks about taking her class out into the woods to explore an old fallen tree. The morning class had a bit of a "failure" and then she repeated the exploration with her afternoon class, utilizing what she learned from the first trip!
I hope you enjoy her blog. And for more information about our Digital Leadership Challenge Simulation, leave a comment and I'll get you in touch with our team.
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