Creativity involves learning from mistakes

We are bombarded with wisdom from entrepreneurs telling us to make every mistake count.

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery,” James Joyce.

You will not bring the internet to a grinding halt or shut down the banking network for a few hours but you never know! It is in your own (and maybe your company’s) interests to own up and make the best of the situation, whatever happens!

You can recover and learn from the situation. After all, creativity is based upon a whole host of learning events. Here are some things that you might try.

Own up and own the mistake. Whatever the reason for things not going according to plan just own up. Don’t blame the people who let you down or the unfortunate circumstances that unfolded. Hold your hands up, realise what has happened and what can be learned and take action (or plan if appropriate).

Fix things if you can and tell someone. Don’t fix things and keep quiet. Mistakes often have potentially serious knock on effects which you may not know about. If problems are visible to everyone then more people can be on the look out or be involved in providing solutions.

Address the root cause. If you systematically reflect on mistakes, you will realize there are patterns in your performance that contribute to these errors. Use some creative techniques to do this if you can. It will stop you trotting out all of the old solutions that have not worked in the

Share what you learned. This will stop you making an idiot of yourself in the future. Furthermore, you now have some extra knowledge to stop others doing the same. Your negative moments will be turned around and be seen as positive. Just try not to have too many mistakes!!

Experiments should be treated in much the same way as mistakes. If you play and have some unexpected results then try to share them.

Creativity: Make Every Mistake Count