Encourage and Celebrate Errors

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Encourage and Celebrate Errors

• Gary Latham
• Rotman School of Management
• University of Toronto

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Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better- Samuel Beckett
3
Of the 200 light bulbs that didnt work, every
failure to me was something that I was able to
incorporate into the next attempt.- Thomas Edison
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Creativity

• The interplay between ability and process by
  which an individual or group produces a product
  that is both novel and useful within some social
  context.

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Behavior heredity x environmentTalentCreativ
ity
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Environment

• Find a model
• Persuasion by a significant other

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Heredity

• Personality
• Goal Orientation

8
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the
following statements? (7-point scale)

• I am willing to select a challenging work
  assignment that I can learn a lot from.
• I often look for opportunities to develop new
  skills and knowledge.
• I enjoy challenging and difficult tasks at work
  where I'll learn new skills.
• For me, further development of my work ability is
  important enough to take risks.
• I prefer to work in situations that require a
  high level of ability and talent.
• I like to show that I can perform better than my
  coworkers.
• I try to figure out what it takes to prove my
  ability to others at work.
• I enjoy it when others at work are aware of how
  well I am doing.
• I prefer to work on projects where I can prove my
  ability to others.
• I would avoid taking on a new task if there was a
  chance that I would appear rather incompetent to
  others.
• Avoiding a show of low ability is more important
  to me than learning a new skill.
• I'm concerned about taking on a task at work if
  my performance would reveal that I had low
  ability.
• I prefer to avoid situations at work where I
  might perform poorly.

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Goal Orientation

• Performance Goal Orientation
• Choose tasks where you will excel
• Avoid tasks where you are likely to fail
• Learning Goal Orientation
• Focus on mastery of new subject matter
• Embrace errors
• Seek criticism
• Minimize group think

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Goal Setting

• Assigned
• Participative
• Self-set

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Goal Setting

• Performance Goals
• Learning Goals
• Sub-goals

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High Goal Pursuit errors

• The person who does not make mistakes is unlikely
  to make anything.
• - Paul Arden

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Self Talk

• I have made an error
• Functional Great! I have just learned something
• Versus
• Dysfunctional I am so stupid.

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What we call failure is not falling down, but the
staying down.- Mary Pickford