Design Research: Vulnerability, Shame, Failure = Success?

Lately failure has been given a new paint job.  It is becoming a mark of your ability to succeed.  Fail faster so you can succeed sooner is a new refrain in design firms and schools.  IDEO founder David Kelley has been sited as the man who coined the phrase.  Clearly, it has been working for him.    Failure was once something to avoid at all costs.  Now it seems a badge of honor.

I've always considered the judgement of another's ability to succeed within social norms extremely small minded.  Yet, it is true there are real consequences if you align yourself with people who behave unlike the majority.  Without a sense of your own personal courage I wouldn't suggest anyone risk their own hard won social positions to recognize the edgy work of an oddball intelligence.  However, while a person is developing their own courage, I would suggest looking for non-damaging opportunities to celebrate the diverse characters which make up our world.  You never know, you could be supporting the next Steve Jobs.  

There are at least as many ways to fail as we have people on this planet.  I'm sure many of us still have a hard time making the leap from failure to success suggested by Kelley and others.  So what keeps people from making that leap?  Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW, believes we are blocked by the idea that we are not good enough.   To help make the point in her 2012 TED Talk Listening to Shame,  she labels TED the "Failure Conference".  Before going into detail she says, "you know why this place is amazing?  Because very few people here are afraid to fail".

As a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, Brown goes deeper than Kelley and into the things which make us afraid to fail and therefor afraid to try.  At the twelve minute mark (after more background than I would say is necessary) she really gets to the point.  She calls out shame as the main obstacle to success and retells a quote from Theodore Roosevelt which she claims, saved her:

"It is not the critic who counts.  It is not the man who sits and points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better, and how he falls and stumbles.  The credit goes to the man in the arena...whose face is marred with dust and blood and sweat.  But, when he is in the arena, at best he wins and at worst he loses, but when he fails when he loses, he does so daring greatly."

There is a lot of truth in what she says during this talk.  However, as a man who has been vulnerable in this world, chosen to let go of shame and believe in myself, I think it is shortsighted to not include some advice on never losing site of when it is appropriate to be vulnerable or not.  Like it or not, humans are hierarchical.  It is in our genes to jockey for social position.  Workplaces and home environments are filled with flawed human beings.  Some of whom are pushed around by the conflicting forces of innate urges and undeveloped thinking.  This can be literally dangerous.  

Apparently, there are places and cultures like IDEO wise enough to see its value, but vulnerability is a luxury not just a reward in and of itself.   As a design researcher it is crucial to understand the value and real risk of vulnerability within ourselves so that we might understand what it might mean for others.  Creating a safe space for the people we interview is key to receiving clear honest information and ultimately insight.