“The more wrong paths you can figure out quickly, the sooner you’ll find the right path.”
A few people wrote in to say how much it resonated with them. More interesting, though, was this response on Twitter, linking to a terrific piece by Jason Fried from back in 2009 entitled Learning From Failure Is Overrated. The choice quote:
“I don’t understand the cultural fascination with failure being the source of great lessons to be learned. What did you learn? You learned what didn’t work. Now you won’t make the same mistake twice, but you’re just as likely to make a different mistake next time. You might know what won’t work, but you still don’t know what will work. That’s not much of a lesson.”
Without wanting to have my cake and eat it to, I truly believe that both perspectives can co-exist.
Some people seem to wear failure as a badge of honour, without necessarily putting the learning into practice. Others are willing learners who don’t need to “fail” in order to discover a better way – they just keep their heads down and keep hacking away.
“Fail fast, fail often” is a load of B/S.Learn as much as you possibly can with the finite resources you have, then get back to work and put that lesson to good use.