Big Wins, Small Steps: How to Lead For and With Creativity

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Ron Beghetto and Laura McBain. Ron is an internationally recognized expert on creative thought and action in educational settings. He holds the Pinnacle West Presidential Chair and serves as professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. And Laura McBain is a designer, educator, and the co-director of the K-12 Lab at the Stanford D School, the design school. As a human-centered designer, her work focuses on understanding the ecosystem of education and finding meaningful opportunities to advance racial and social justice. And together they are the authors of the new book, My Favorite Failure, How Setbacks Can Lead to Learning and Growth.

[00:54] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:57] SPEAKER_02:

Laura and Ron, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:59] SPEAKER_01:

Great to be here, Justin. Thanks for having us.

[01:01] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, excited. Excited to dig into this. This is wonderful.

[01:04] SPEAKER_02:

Well, take us, if you could, into a little bit of the origin story of the book. You know, certainly much has been made of the opportunities that we have to learn from failure. And I understand you took kind of a different approach in how you put this book together, but where did it come from? And what do you think educators needed to hear that informed the design of the book?

[01:21] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I'll jump in, I guess. So I think Laura and I were running parallel paths in our professional work. And I kind of really started thinking about this When I was at the university of Connecticut and directing something called innovation house, which was for all undergraduates of all majors, they could apply to these different houses. And innovation house was for folks that were interested in innovation. And so we had a project where they could design any kind of innovation or program or product. that they felt would address the need and make a positive and lasting contribution.

[01:57]

And what we found was that students were a little bit frozen in that moment. They really didn't know how to get started. They didn't believe us that they were really being asked to do this. And as we kind of dug into a little bit, there was a lot of fear around, what if this doesn't work out? I've never done anything like this before. And that's when I started thinking about, and then in conversation with Laura, You know, we do in education have a lot of slogans and we have a lot of, you know, curricula, including things like growth mindset and have grit and fail forward and all these different slogans.

[02:30]

But they really do kind of fall flat if we think about it. When somebody actually does experience the deep, full body and profound and often negative emotions of failure. Right. So what we started realizing at Innovation House with my team was we need to kind of front load this experience with stories of our own favorites. failures and why they're our favorite and why we learn from them, even though they were sometimes unpleasant and painful, they still did lead to learning and growth opportunities. So that was kind of my entry into it.

[03:02]

I'll kick it over to you, Laura, and hear what you have to say.

[03:06] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, as someone who has spent, you know, I'm excited to be on, you know, this podcast with y'all because I was a principal myself. And so I spent a lot of time in schools as a K-12 educator. And one of the things that this book really, you know, one of the reasons why we, I launched into it with Ron is one, it's always great to work with Ron. But then also, you know, one of the things that I've been working a lot at the Stanford D School is really helping people take risks, thinking about creativity. How do they, you know, really understand their own creative confidence?

[03:35]

And failure is a big part of that. And one of the insights that we had early on when I started doing this work is we spent a lot of time helping our designers, our Stanford students, the educators I work with, think about their learning journey. What was the design process they went through? And not surprising, some of the interesting learning journeys they would strive up was all the struggles and the failures they had along the way. Those were the moments where they actually felt they learned the most, but were also the most painful. The moments where they felt like, whoa, I wasn't prepared for that.

[04:08]

And I think that gave Ron and I this massive insight that we often spend a lot of time reflecting at the end of projects, at the end of the school year. at the end of the student conference, whatever mechanism you have in place. And we spend a lot of time talking about those learning moments, the failures, successes, but we spend very little time in schools anticipating the failure. We as educators know they're gonna happen and they probably should happen if we're all really learning And how do we actually help young people, educators anticipate and hold space for the learning journey slash failures that are going to come up when we're really doing really interesting learning moments? And so this idea of how do we actually teach failure? not just teach success in school or talk about metrics for success was for me, I think part of the inspiration from the book is how do we get better at teaching failure, anticipating failure, knowing that those are probably the most productive moments for learning for young people and educators when they're doing work that really asks them to move beyond their comfort zones.

[05:12] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's interesting to think about the experience of failure, especially in K-12. The most promising students, as far as getting into selective colleges or doing amazing things in their career, probably don't have many experiences of failure. Looking back on my K-12 career, I can't think of any time when teachers said to me, you know what, you're probably going to fail at this the first time. And the purpose of this is to teach you to try again and learn from it and so forth. I don't think I had a single experience like that. Failure was positioned as a very bad thing that was to be avoided at all costs because this is going on your permanent record and you have to get into...

[05:48]

There's this whole messaging that students receive from us as educators that failure is not okay. And then we get into the adult world and we find out that it's actually part of life. One of the big things that we help people with at the Principal Center is the admin job search, becoming a principal or assistant principal. And a lot of people are just used to succeeding at the first time they try. They say, oh, I've applied for three jobs and maybe I'm just not cut out for this because I haven't gotten one of those three jobs yet. And it's like, well, This is different, right?

[06:14]

Life works differently than school where you get straight A's and succeed the first time. So let's think from educators' perspective, because we've touched on that already. What are some of the things that we need to maybe either stop doing or just kind of rethink that come up in the book as far as the experiences that we offer for students?

[06:32] SPEAKER_01:

So I think kind of piggybacking on what Laura was saying early on, I think this is for educators, but also educational leaders, that whenever we're asking somebody to do something new, which is kind of the definition of learning, if they already know how to do it, then they're not really learning, they're just rehearsing. So this could be asking one of your teachers or a team of teachers or yourself as an educational leader. And certainly when we ask students to do anything new, whether it's a new kind of project or learning, What we have to do, as Laura mentioned, is anticipate that not all kids or not all of our colleagues or not even ourselves are always going to be successful whenever we try something new. It could be a new reform initiative, whatever the case may be. It really is an important and powerful moment when whoever is facilitating the work, so if it's a building principal or superintendent or or if it's a classroom teacher or a teacher within kind of a group of teachers, whenever we're kind of facilitating that work, really the way to kind of set the tone and to build trust is to take that risk together by sharing our own stories about when we tried something and it didn't work

[07:41]

and how we learned about it. And so this is why we call it my favorite failure. It's meant to kind of be provocative and also disruptive in saying like failures often things thought of as this kind of negative thing. And it often is experienced that way, but favorite is something positive. So can we mesh these two together? And in addition to that, can we welcome the negative emotions that come with failure?

[08:05]

So oftentimes in this place called school, we celebrate positive emotions. And the minute somebody is getting frustrated or upset, we try to immediately erase that and say, oh, you don't have to be upset. But we know that that that's not soothing at all. Right. That can often be insulting for somebody who's really experiencing something negative. So what we want to do here with this, we developed this really simple kind of wireframe curriculum around failure, if you will.

[08:30]

It's this kind of narrative structure. So we have people start out by telling their own stories, and that's what we did. We collected stories in this book of other folks that have gone through failures that they learned from powerfully. And so it's just very simple. What's a time when you tried something new and important, it didn't work out? What happened?

[08:48]

The very next question is, how did it feel when it happened? And we want to talk about the whole kind of fabric of emotion, including negative emotions. And then what did you learn about that situation in retrospect? What did you learn about yourself? And finally, why is it your favorite? And so this simple little structure can be really powerful, particularly if it's started by the person facilitating it, the classroom teacher, the building administrator.

[09:15]

And by taking that risk, it starts building trust in that environment. And then you can invite young people to do the same. So like in math class, for example, wouldn't it be great instead of playing people bingo at the beginning of the year or going over the syllabus saying, you know what, let me tell you as a math teacher, a time when I failed in math and what that felt like, but what I learned about it and what I learned about myself and why it's my favorite And then you can have the kids group together and share their own stories. And then if they're willing to share them with others, great, right? So that sets a completely different tone and context for the work that's going to be done throughout the course of the year, the semester, or even in a meeting with families or whatever the case may be. It is just a completely qualitatively different approach to establishing a learning environment than what we typically do.

[10:05] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, I think just, we're trying to normalize it, you know, this idea, as you said, it's like avoided all costs, failures voted. And yet, you know, what we've discovered, not surprising, everyone fails. This is like, this is every human being on the face of the planet has failed at something like this is not a solo thing. And I think one thing that we've realized, one of the big insights is. And the book that's come out is like, you know, your favorite failure, the ones that are probably the one that, you know, rip you apart, the ones that are kind of that stick with you, that change how you view the world, you know, shift your perspective on how you interact with others are really that become this really strong, what we would consider more collective experience.

[10:47]

You know, oftentimes when we think about failures, we kind of get confused between a mistake and a failure. And they're actually quite different. You know, a mistake is something when Ron and I realized we're like, a mistake is something you might've done actually has less emotions connected to it. And it might be done something where you like burn your toast. The consequences are actually quite low, you know, or you made this horrible dinner, not a big deal. You know, it is what it is and you can move past it.

[11:12]

But failure, right, is what we realize is these full body experiences, right? And one of the, again, the insights in one of the, in the book here is like, wow, if failures are actually felt individually, but also experienced communally, like with others, how do we actually hold space for communities and individuals who are experiencing failure in those moments? And the more that we can get better at seeing them, noticing when people are failing and stepping in as educators to support young people during those moments, say, wow, you're frustrated. Wow. That means you're probably learning a lot right now. And that's really, it's hard, but that's okay.

[11:48]

That allows us to move past those emotions and really focus on what am I learning here? How do I feel about this? And what does this mean for me?

[11:55] SPEAKER_02:

I wonder if you have a favorite failure, either a personal one or a story from the book that you collected in doing your research. What are some of the favorite stories of failure that readers will find in the book?

[12:06] SPEAKER_01:

Great. Yeah. So if I was to share my own personal favorite failures, this is too short of a podcast. So let's talk about some of the book here. So there's a couple, and it's really interesting. We collected these stories first, and then we kind of started learning from them ourselves and talking about our learning from them.

[12:23]

But there's two kinds, and I just want to kind of underscore what Laura was talking about. So there's an example of a story in there. of a student who was giving one of their first professional presentations and it kind of went sideways and that person just froze in that moment. And I think we've all seen this. This happens in classrooms all the time when a kid has to go up and present something or do a problem in front of other people and freeze. And it really underscored that this is a shared moment.

[12:51]

And somebody in the audience in this story started clapping and kind of broke the ice, if you will. which was a really powerful moment. It showed that we as an audience have a responsibility to step in and support each other. Cause we experienced it in the audience. We can feel that discomfort. And so, It gets to that point of if we share these kinds of stories with young people, and then we can have the secondary conversation of, okay, if this ever happens in our class, what are our responsibilities?

[13:20]

What's my responsibility as a teacher? What are our responsibilities to each other? Who's going to step in and break the ice and say it's okay? Maybe step in and say, oh, I think I can help you with this problem. And that we kind of share this moment. So they can happen momentarily, but there's also stories of failure that took many, many years, like going into the wrong degree programs and spending four years failing and failing and failing after being a really stellar student and realizing I need to pivot and do something different because this is just, it really is taking much out of me and taking the joy and purpose out of my life.

[13:56]

So that was a prolonged, long duration failure. So there's stories from everything from that momentary failure to kind of prolonged failures. Got a favorite, Laura?

[14:08] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch from the book. And I think one thing that, you know, a lot of that we realize in one, there's a book about expectations, actually. And part of like one of the insights around failure is that a failure, you know, the moment or the experience is less about the moment itself, but also the key thing of like this moment failed to meet my expectations of what I thought would happen. And so, you know, there's an example of the book and it's a very simple example where a colleague was visiting, you know, an esteemed colleague who they thought would have this great interaction. They showed up with food.

[14:40]

They're ready to like engage. And they're like, this is I'm so excited about this moment because this is going to happen. This person is going to come out. They're going to mentor me. They've got this whole story about how this moment is going to go. And then the complete opposite happens.

[14:54]

I don't want to tell the whole story because you got to read the book, but it's like, but the exact topic happens. And all of a sudden it felt like, whoa, everything I had trained for and learned for what I expected was completely different what happened. And so that story in the shortest way of that particular moment was like, whoa, it wasn't that this moment was a massive failure, but the failure comes from like the expectations surrounding those moments of failure. This idea of what we thought was going to happen and then radically different. And then we place a lot of emotion and value, or I would say judgment or shame on ourselves of like, oh, I failed in this moment. No, no.

[15:30]

It was your focusing on what the expectation was of that moment would be. And so there's a couple examples of that in the book, but that one in particular resonated with me because we all... As educators, you know, whether you're like leading a classroom, it's the end of the school year or it's like the back to the school year. We've got these like expectations about how things are going to wrap.

[15:50]

You know, I'm thinking about your network and all the principals and like this is how it's going to go. And then you walk into the room and it's completely the opposite. Of how it is going to go. If you're a principal leading a school right now, that's pretty much everything these past few years have completely been the opposite of expectations. And so how do you actually look at those moments, say, what was my expectation? Like what really did happen in those moments?

[16:13]

How do I let go of that expectation and actually learn what do I need to learn here? What is actually what I need to listen to more? And if we can lean on that, we actually release a little bit of the failure and actually get more curious about what the learning needs to happen, not the binary, this meeting failed, this end of year project failed, but really what did I actually not notice right away that I need to learn more about as I approach my next meeting, next experience that I do.

[16:40] SPEAKER_02:

I love it. And I think we're all familiar with the type of failure that you might encounter when prototyping in You know, say building a bridge or building a tower, you know, it falls down. OK, what do we need to do differently? Like we've all seen that kind of thing and that's kind of familiar. But the idea of, you know, expectations being part of what we need to adjust or, you know, the idea of there being different takeaways, I think, is a really powerful one from from this book. And I remember presenting at a conference about five years ago on a new idea that I was very excited about.

[17:09]

and completely bombed. Just nobody had any idea what I was talking about. I had all these great hands-on activities for people to do, and they just gave me these blank stares. I clearly had not explained it as clearly as I thought I had. Five years later, it's a book, and people are getting it, and it's exciting. But I think if I hadn't had that experience of bombing at this national conference and just having...

[17:31]

Absolutely no success to show for my efforts. I don't think it would have gone where it went. What are some of the other maybe common takeaways or themes in what we can learn from failure? Because obviously we could choose a different direction. We could pivot. We could reinforce the bridge, so to speak.

[17:50]

Any other big highlights of types of takeaways from failure?

[17:55] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a really good point. I think sometimes in school, we really focus on finishing whatever you start. And that's important. So there are stories in there about persistence, just trying and trying again until...

[18:11]

you finally do arrive at success. So there's a really amazing story in there about somebody applying to art school, for example. But there's also moments when you realize you might need to pivot because it's just not working out. What you expected, what your anticipation was, isn't working and that if you pivot, you can actually find something better. And so I think it raises questions like, why isn't it OK, for example, in school if we assign a term paper and somebody has a topic and it's due in two days and this student's been working on it and has finished this paper almost, and then something about their work on the research paper, they identify a new topic. Why wouldn't it be okay to say, you know what, I stopped writing that paper, I'll show you the work I did, but here's my thesis statement for this new paper.

[18:59]

I just have only a thesis statement. Why is that not okay? You know, a lot of times kids get the message, well, you need to finish that first one, even though it's turned into sawdust for you and you're super excited about this other topic before you can go on to the other topic. But we know outside of school, that's how life is, right? A lot of things come from pivoting when we realize there's a much more fruitful direction. And that even happened with some of the students that I work with in Innovation House.

[19:25]

They pivoted their project at the last moment. They turned into something else and it turned into a company that they started actually. Right. So I think there's a lot of powerful examples of, you know, helping young people collectively with the support of their teachers and their families and so on. Know when to persist, when it's valuable to persist, not give up right away, but also know when it's okay to pivot and set down a good idea in search of a better idea or set down an idea that's just not panning out for you in search of something that could bring joy and actually make a positive contribution. So that's an example.

[20:00] SPEAKER_00:

You know, I think for me, I think, I mean, there's a number of insights. I'm also thinking about your network, you know, and I know as a former principal, we live in this world sometimes of evaluation and assessment where we like evaluate things on a rubric or letter system, et cetera. And I think, you know, that's one of the challenges of our current system is this like binary thought about what success and failure is. whether you're evaluating a teacher or whether you're, you know, working on an assignment, you know, that's graded by a letter grade, et cetera. I think one of the things that we realized is like, how do we move from, wow, this is C-level work or this is a C student, that concept that we often have in our brain of like, and start to getting noticed that actually like success and failure are not binary, right? You know, there are pieces within every whether it's a project, within a classroom, within a lesson plan that actually is grounds for success.

[20:48]

Nothing is also all good and all bad. So how do we leave space for the gray area, if you will, between success and failure, whether you're evaluating a classroom, a lesson plan, a grade, you name it, even if your system doesn't allow for like comments? How do you actually allow and pose people questions? Like, what did you notice about that piece? Of the 90% that you didn't finish, about the 10% you did do, what was good about that part? How do we leave space for that?

[21:18]

Because that's where we can start shifting to say, yes, there's some stuff to work on, right? Because we're not advocating for like, oh, you just don't want to do anything. Well, no, no, we want to do that. But how do we find of the things you did do, how do we actually find the success in those things? and really give a much longer space to like, what does it feel like to be successful in this? What parts of that didn't go well?

[21:38]

How do we live a little bit more in the middle and create a system, whether it's in a classroom or in a teacher evaluation, where we actually can have the conversation about the middle? and actually have a conversation about what feels successful, what doesn't, and that whole range. And then I think that's a big one is like really moving into the dialogue around the stories behind these things, which allow us actually to, I think, have more productive conversations about growth, like curiosity, authentic goals that allow us to get better as opposed to thinking everything, this was the checklist. They didn't meet these expectations, but that's it. I'm writing this off. But where's the space for the conversation about each part of that?

[22:17] SPEAKER_02:

So the book is My Favorite Failure, How Setbacks Can Lead to Learning and Growth. Ron and Laura, thank you so much for joining me today on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[22:26] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much. And we invite your listeners to take the beautiful risk of sharing their own favorite failures and encouraging others to do the same.

[22:34] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

[22:35] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.