Fool Me Twice

How we react to errors and failures is very important – much more important than avoiding them in the first place.

I recently taught my children how to play a card game called “Bullshit.” If you’ve never played it, it involves lying about the face-down cards you play and lying about the contents of your hand. If someone calls you and you were telling the truth, they’re penalized. If they catch you lying, you’re penalized. The first time we played, my son lost badly because he was very trusting. The second time we played, he won – because no lie works on him twice. Each time he was fooled in some way, he was careful about that particular error. I told him I was very proud of him – not for winning, but for learning from his mistakes so well.

If you fail in a task, usually you’ll make some change before attempting it again. If you fail again, you now have two mistakes to consider! The first is the original error in overall planning, but the second mistake is that you thought your fix would work, and obviously it didn’t. To avoid cascading, chaotic failures, the second time not meeting your goal is really the critical one. Simple mistakes happen all the time, and simple fixes are usually enough. But if they aren’t, now you’re in “fool me twice” territory. You’re in danger of just flailing around instead of being purposeful.

That’s the time to go back to the drawing board. Look at the whole system you’re trying to navigate. Make a new plan. Get new information. Ask for a second set of eyes to look at what you’re working on. Take the time; by the second failure, it’s almost always worth it. Otherwise, shame on you!