Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself” -Eleanor Roosevelt
3 Main Messages
We need to be willing to face up to failure and be honest about key data
Lying to oneself destroys the possibility of learning
By recognising and addressing problems we move the world forward
When I first read this book in 2016 it changed the way I viewed both my life and my leadership journey. I suddenly understood the value in admitting and owning mistakes and I took on Roosevelt's words when speaking at an Aspiring for Headship conference: “Let me share with you some of the mistakes I made in my first year of Headship so that you won’t make them,” I said. “You can then go and make different mistakes!”
Mistakes are part of our journey, part of learning and vital in moving forward. Our challenge, as leaders, is to create environments where people feel safe in making mistakes which will then allow them to take risks, be creative and grow.
In Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed compares cultures which have embraced and encouraged the honest sharing of mistakes and so grown and flourished as a result, with the industries or sectors which shame and blame and cause mistakes to be covered up - preventing others from learning vital lessons.
He uses the airline industry as an excellent example of a positive open-minded culture, sharing stories about mistakes and near misses, as well as mis-interpreting data and how vital it is to accept and own these errors. He quotes Sullenberger (who famously crashed his plane into the Hudson) as saying that the aviation industry had “lessons literally bought with blood.” It is obvious from these examples, that we need to be willing to face up to failures and be honest about key data. In extreme cases, lives will be saved.
There are wonderful examples of companies who have embraced this mindset and use it proactively in creating better products and improving performances. Unilever, Syed says, has “a profound understanding of the relationship between failure and success” and use this in their product design techniques, mirroring evolution in nature: taking one successful model and making 10 minor adjustments then taking the best of these and repeating the process multiple times. Genius - and obvious!
Syed also unpicks the mindset of successful industries which use marginal gains - lots of tiny tweaks which accumulate and result in huge gains. I found myself reflecting on this in the education world and thinking about how we might implement lots of small changes which could result in significant improvements. We enjoyed unpicking this as a team, with excellent results!
With this mindset, there are also wonderful examples of those people who looked for problems in order to find solutions: Maclaren’s frustrations with a cumbersome pram resulted in the design of the collapsible buggy; Baylis was frustrated with a lack of batteries in Africa and so developed wind-up radios to be able to share news and educate in the face of AIDs; John Shepherd-Barron realised he had forgotten to visit the bank and so invented the ATM.
Syed tells us that “creativity is just connecting things” but also points out that we need to have a growth mindset and embrace the inevitable mistakes that we will make if we are to feel free to take risks and try.
Fortunately, there are many schools in the UK who have embraced Carol Dweck’s approach, where children are encouraged to love challenges, be rewarded for effort over achievement, and to think of mistakes as learning opportunities. There are displays in many thousands of school halls with quotes about Beckham missing goals, Jordan losing games and Dyson failing 5,127 times before succeeding with his designs.
Children understand. Do we as adults? When working with staff, there are many who talk the talk but are still reluctant to be fully honest, and to take risks. Certainly, if we want our staff to take risks and be honest about their mistakes, then we cannot blame or reprimand them when they do. As leaders we are the culture creators and need to lead by example in our actions, reactions and carefully chosen words.
There are certainly multiple books and podcasts now around this theme, Bounce Back, How to Fail and The Growth Mindset podcasts being some examples which are helping us to redefine our relationship with failure. Increasingly, the most successful entrepreneurs, athletes and politicians of our time also about their lowest points and biggest mistakes being the most important part of their learning journey. If they can embrace failure, then so must we.
Another First Lady, Michelle Obama, said “Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.” Embracing mistakes and failure as inevitable is a difficult mindset to master but a vital one if we are to succeed. And we have to succeed in it if we are to lead in it.
