Card #99 – ”Learn from Mistakes” from the Creative Whack Pack
Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

One thing that “whacks” our thinking is failure — it jolts us out of our routines and forces us to look for fresh approaches.
Errors serve a useful purpose: they tell us when to change direction. When things go smoothly, we generally don’t think about them. Often it is only when things or people fail to do their job that they get our attention.
Negative feedback means that the current approach isn’t working, and it’s time to find a new one. We learn by trial and error, not by trial and rightness.
Indeed, most people don’t change when they “see the light.” They change when they “feel the heat.” A friend of mine who had been fired from a job told me:
“It was traumatic but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
“It forced me to come to grips with my strengths and weaknesses, and to get out of my box and scramble.”
The same is true for large institutions and organizations.
• After the supertanker Exxon Valdez broke open off of Alaska in 1989, thereby polluting the coast with millions of gallons of oil, the petroleum industry had to rethink and toughen up many of its safety standards dealing petroleum transport.
• The disintegration of the Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003) space shuttles caused a similar thing to happen at NASA.
• Similarly, the sinking of the Titanic (1912) led to the creation of the International Ice Patrol, and legally mandated iceberg reporting.
• The September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center forced architects to significantly raise their fire retardation standards in new high-rise building construction.
• The catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami forced world seismic monitoring authorities to change how they disseminate and share warning information.
— What is the biggest mistake you might make in your current issue?
— What might you learn from it?
— What mistakes from your past can you apply to your current situation?