SIMON PHIPPS

I read a brilliant article recently talking about why organisations don't learn.  In the article the authors discuss several biases that affect a companies ability to learn. One of these was a bias towards success . The authors spoke about how a bias towards success leads to a fear of failure .  Success is good.  Failure is bad. For most of us this just seems like common sense. Who wants to fail? But what the authors speak of, is that when we are afraid of failure, innovation dies. When we are afraid of failure we will no longer take risks , when we are afraid of failure, we will not try anything new . Our entire growth as human beings is about doing things differently, about experimenting in our environments, about trying new things.  Essentially this is what children do, and this is why they learn so much. They are constantly probing and trying. Their imaginations act as virtual worlds where they can experiment with cause and effect.* It

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." - Henry Van Dyke I read this quote recently and found it so profound. In my latest blog post i spoke about our need to create .  I think that one of the main reasons that we do not pursue our creative inclinations is due to fear. Fear of inadequacy , fear of failure , fear of criticism . I recently heard an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert , author of Eat, Pray, Love. In the interview she asked a series of questions: when did you stop dancing? When did you stop drawing? When did you stop [ insert whatever you once enjoyed here ]? Chances are it was when you were no longer a child, when you started to care what people think. We often don't want to add to the great noise of information and creation on the internet; we are afraid to share what we create. But nobody would say of the forest that too many birds sing, that the cacophony i