#58 - Any Failure has two parts. Our reaction to it defines the future course.

In his book Creativity Inc., Ed Catmull, Founder of Pixar discusses how his company handles failure. There are movies that got cancelled because it was going nowhere. There are movies that got cancelled because they were not able to translate awesomeness from a script to screen. This is how Pixar handles failure.

There are two parts to any failure: There is the event itself, with all its attendant disappointment, confusion, and shame, and then there is out reaction to it. It is the second part that we control. Do we become introspective, or do we bury our heads in the sand? Do we make it safe for others to acknowledge and learn from problems, or do we shut down discussion by looking for people to blame? We must remember that failure gives us chances to grow, and we ignore those chances at our own peril.

Ed Catmull, Creativity Inc.