I used to be petrified of failure. I thought that it would expose me as being a fraud or show that I bad at what I did.
Reflecting on this I now think that this was a load of rubbish!
How would I have learnt anything if I had not failed or got things wrong? It is intrinsic in human evolution that we make mistakes and then learn from them. However, I was always afraid of failure as it was drilled into me at school that failure was bad; you would be doomed, jobless, homeless, unhappy and lonely. Ok maybe a bit dramatic but being at school I vividly perceived that if I failed GCSE's then I would not get a job; if I failed A-Levels then I would not go to University.... and it goes on. I now know this was rubbish and had nothing to do with me but the schools league tables...I digress.
In the rehearsal room it is intrinsic that I make sure that my actors feel comfortable enough to get things wrong; if I didn't then my shows would become stale, boring and uncreative. A rehearsal is just that; we rehearse, we repeat, get things wrong and try new ways of working until we can make a show as well presented as possible.
In the real world and outside the rehearsal room is different; we don't always have the safe space to fail. We don't always have the chance to go back and change a line we just said; there is no script or stage directions.
So, as leaders how can we fail successfully? How can we create a rehearsal room environment to cushion the blow of failure and learn from it?
Ultimately, if we don't have that safe space to fail then we will never take risks and things would never change...
I just wish I had found this out when I was at school!
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