#executive wisdom

I just came across an older NY Times article about the power of gaming and its role in learning.  It's about Will Wright, the mind behind The SIMS.  The article quotes:

In games... players learn through failure, which is the best route to excellence.

Wright supports his claim by referring to a non-gaming example: making clay pots.  A study was conducted that compared two pottery classes and the quality of their pots at the end of the classes. In one class, students were told to make the best single pot they could; i.e., be careful and do it right the first time.  In the other class, students were told to make as many pots as possible within in the exact same amount of time as the first class.

The second class produced the most high-quality clay pot.

I left LA's Promise to get a fresh start. The truth is, ed reform burned me out. Totally.

Season 2 of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was a grand exit to that nearly 10 year run.  Head to head with LAUSD, Friday nights on ABC (even nominated for an Emmy).  It was a fight worth fighting, but did I win or lose?  I don't even know.

I have an untested theory about why that Parent Trigger movie Don't Back Down, despite strong talent, failed so miserably.  The public isn't inspired by that battle; we don't know which side to choose in the ed reform war, and we resent having to choose.  We aren't idiots.  We feel manipulated.  And we are angry that adults make helping kids so complicated.

Last summer, I met a local filmmaker, Nirvan Mullick.  He made a short film and posted it on YouTube, and within a few days, it totally and unexpectedly rocked the world.  It's called, Caine's Arcade.  It's about a young boy in Boyle Heights (East LA) who built an elaborate penny arcade out of cardboard boxes.  The Christian Science Monitor called it "a great American story."

Many of you probably know the story.  The film hit over eight million views online and the world went a little crazy for Caine and cardboard creativity.  Justin Timberlake tweeted about it, Jack Black made home videos with his own kids making cardboard games, and dozens of news outlets took notice of Caine.  Inspired by the film, in backyards, playgrounds and schools, across 40 countries on six continents, communities started coming together to celebrate the creativity of children.  Nirvan made a second film, and it told that story:  Caine's Arcade 2: From a Movie to a Movement (HLNTV called it the "happiest sequel ever!").

The message of the film is simple and hopeful, and frankly, for me, it's even a bit redemptive.  There isn't an enemy in Caine's Arcade.  No red tape to cut.  No evil school board or bureaucratic subterfuge.  The message is about the promise of children, the value of creativity, and the role adults can play to foster it.  I'm not alone; this message resonated with the whole world.  And a movement has begun.

During the weekend after the deeply saddening Newtown shooting, views of the Caine's Arcade film increased by the thousands.  Some people reached out and commented they had watched the movie five times in row, just so they could feel hope again.

When a really good friend and rather notorious ed reformer heard of my new merger, he commented:

I love the idea.  Schools need to learn how to get out of the way.  Sometimes the best thing you can do to educate kids is throw some cardboard in front of them and get out of the way. 

Nirvan and I met last summer, a few months after he posted Caine's Arcade.  He had just created the Imagination Foundation, with a mission to find and foster creativity in children around the globe.  It didn't take long for us to decide to work together.  What I had been building and hoping to accomplish through REWORK is completely in line with Nirvan's vision; in fact, totally inspired by it.  I'm hooked, so I became the founding Executive Director of the Imagination Foundation.

Failure has been on my mind a lot lately.  It started with a quote by Salman Kahn (of Kahn Academy) on KPCC (a local NPR affiliate).  He congratulated America, suggesting that the reason America remains a leader in innovation (despite our declining academic competitiveness internationally) is our embrace of failure.  I don't know if I agree with him about America (that it welcomes failure), but his quote stuck with me because I think I've failed a lot.

While giving me advice last year on how to talk about my past experience and pitch my new startup, a trusted advisor told me "stick with what you got right.  No more talk about your failures."  Generally good advice.  But I really enjoy talking about failure.  It's much more interesting to me than success.  It's just more authentic.

Dorie Clark, a contributor to Forbes, went so far as to say failure is a skill; a critical one in fact for CEO's of the future.  (I added it to my linkedin profile just today.)

Not all failure is the same, though.  David Sundheim talks about "smart failure."  His point is really about good plans that just don't workout despite our best attempts; smart failure  versus being stupid.  Stupid failure.  An innovative work culture effectively rewards smart failure.  You took on something bold, planned well, tried hard... but oh well, it didn't work out.  On the other hand, there's no excuse for stupid failure (but look... we all do that too).

Though I can for the most part clearly differentiate success from failure, I have a hard time understanding success without failure.  The process of getting things right is iterative - which means getting things wrong is essential (some people don't call it "getting things wrong" though, but rather something more gentle, like "evolving" or "getting things half right," which is accurate too.  But this is partly just rhetoric, and we shouldn't be so afraid to use the rhetoric of failure.

The iterative nature of success is why I'm a big fan of the prefix "re": redo, restart, rework (and it's why I named my new company REWORK - I originally called it "What Works," but getting to what works is all about reworking; and creating discipline around "reworking" is the point of my company).

Jeff Haden wrote on Inc.com about the qualities of really successful people (can't find the link):  he said they "don't have a Plan B."  In the article, he's talking about the resilience and tenacity of successful people.  But it can't possibly be true that successful people don't have a Plan B.  What kind of low-risk-playing-it-safe kinda success is Jeff talking about?  I think The Most Interesting Man in the World offers a much more accurate insight: