Failure is not Defeat

**I wrote this article for a Magazine Article Writing class that I had with Pam Zollman at AnAuthor World. The basic premise of my proposed series of articles was the application of basic improv concepts to real-world leadership situations. This is the first of that series. Or possibly the only in that series.**

Failure is not Defeat: Manage Risk like an Improv Coach

Improvisation is inherently risky. To put oneself in front of his peers and pretend without knowing what may happen… well, that might seem to be the definition of insanity. However, a good improv coach knows that his number one job is to give his actors permission to fail. He creates a “safe zone” that encourages failure. By permitting and encouraging failure, he in fact creates a space for surprise successes. And that is what makes improvisational comedy so compelling. It’s like watching a kid run at full tilt. He may stumble and fall, even viciously, but when he gets back up and keeps going you cannot help but root for him, like Sean Astin in “Rudy”: even relatively small successes in the face of such overwhelming failure is more than just cause for raucous celebration.

But how do you create an expectation that truly accepts failure? First, as an improv coach, I have to have an attitude that accepts failure as success, which is a pretty difficult thing to do when you are directing a scene where one person has decided to play John Paul Jones and the other insists that they are both pickles in a garden. It can be almost impossible not to grimace and bail on the scene, but that would be the wrong reaction. Second, I have to make sure that all the players are risking at comparable levels. It is not a supportive atmosphere when one player is risking everything and no one else is willing to follow him there. It is the leader’s job to create the supportive space (a padded room, so to speak) that spurs his players on to make massive and embarrassing mistakes in a safe and supportive situation so that he can learn from them.

It seems logical to say that failure is a negative thing, but it isn’t. It may feel bad at first, certainly. If a great amount of effort is exerted to the completion of a task, or the starting of a business, or perhaps even in the pursuit of love, when the desired goal slips from between reaching fingers there is a great feeling of loss and impotency. Yet in every unsuccessful venture there is a wealth of knowledge. In the famous legend, when Thomas Edison was interviewed during his battle with Nicola Tesla to invent the first working light bulb, he was asked how he felt having failed 1000 times, to which he responded that he had not failed, but had successfully proven 1000 ways NOT to invent the light bulb. Your perspective of “failure” is what determines your defeat.

Every failure has a commonality: a risk has been taken. Every risk may end in failure; but even with failure comes the reward of having defeated stagnation and motionlessness. It is said that love and hate are not opposites, because at least an active stance has been taken towards the person. It is indifference that is the true measure of one’s distaste. In the same way, failure is not the true measure of one’s defeat. Defeat is when one does not risk. An improviser has a little bit different mindset than perhaps a typical person in a team. They have to support their teammates while keeping the interest of the audience. To do that, they have to make risky decisions that will, more than likely, make them look like fools. But there is a paradox here: the more risky the decision, the less likely they are going to fail.

There is nothing worse than watching improvisers make weak decisions. In many ways, it’s like looking over a chasm to a cliff on the other side that you must reach… you may be completely terrified to fling yourself into the void, but to do any less would be much more likely to end in a Wile E. Coyote wail, thud and accordion walk-off in humiliation. No guts, no glory, right? But the more times that the chasm is vaulted, the easier the risk becomes. It’s a psychological thing: when someone walks along a sidewalk only two feet wide, there is no problem. But if suddenly the same path is suspended two hundred feet in the air, there is a huge problem. The trick is putting the seemingly dangerous path on ground-level, mentally, by creating the space in which to work on high-risk content without fear. In this way, the player will be accustomed to the rush of huge risks and be able to maneuver into the greater reward that all the weaker ones wouldn’t try to reach in a million years.

Failure is always going to be a scary concept; no one enjoys failing. But failure does not have to be defeat. Giving permission to fail, minimizing the negative aspects of failure and encouraging greater risks to acquire greater rewards are three concepts used in an improvisational comedy atmosphere to elicit unusual results from otherwise law-abiding citizens… well, most of them abide the laws, anyway. These concepts were constructed to harmonize a group full of disparate personalities into a strong unit that not only gets along but delights those invited into their space as they watch the team function well. The main entertainment of improv comedy is not necessarily the content generated; to be honest, the content is usually something less than Tony-caliber, and that’s being generous. It’s the thrill that the audience gets from seeing a group of people work together intensely to accomplish a common goal, however nontraditional that goal might be. These concepts are easily applied to any leadership situation. Every leader seeks the best out of his team. Lead them into risky behavior by providing them with a way to process “failure” as a positive step towards a successful goal.