For a significant portion of my life, I taught Science and History to Middle and High Students. But like most teachers, the curriculum was only part of what I taught. What I truly enjoyed, and what I believe was most vital, was teaching my students how to fail well.
I grew tired of watching brilliant students paralyzed by anxiety. They lacked a sense of psychological safety, which led to a generalized, “world-is-ending” fear of making a mistake. This was not just unhealthy; it was unproductive. They were not moving forward because they did not have a system to process their setbacks.
I had to come up with a new way to approach the potential of failing, to minimize the impact, to grow from and ultimately achieve greater and greater success from failing.
So I taught them how to FLeRD their failures.
Beyond “Fail Fast”
We are constantly told to “fail fast” and “embrace our mistakes.” It’s a popular battle cry, but it’s incomplete. Failing fast is useless if you don’t know what to do in the next moment. If your approach to failure is simply to pick yourself up and try again with the exact same strategy, you aren’t “failing forward”, you are just running on a treadmill into the same brick wall.
The highest performing teams, and the most resilient students, do not have fewer failures. They just have better ones. They have a mechanism to process the wreckage, mine the data, and transform a setback into fuel.
They use FLeRD: Fail. Learn. Renew. Do.
The Anatomy of the FLeRD Cycle
FLeRD is an operational framework designed to move a project/work off the “failure path” and toward a successful conclusion through an ascending spiral of iteration.
1. FAIL: The Starting Line
The first step? Stop grieving the loss and start auditing the reality. In FLeRD, failure is not a signal to stop; it is the definitive starting line for a more informed attempt. We distinguish between wasteful errors and “Productive Failure”, the kind that is rich in data.
2. LEARN: The Evidence Room
This is where we bypass the “blame game.” Using tools like the Five Whys, we strip away ego to find the systemic root cause. If you only learn who did it, you haven’t learned why the system allowed it. You have to go further and truly mine the failure for data, to find the root cause without the finger pointing.
3. RENEW: The Strategic Pivot
Learning is not enough; you must actionize the data. To Renew is, often, to make the difficult choice to “kill your darlings”, tossing out the methods, tools, or beliefs that kept you stuck. It’s about restoring your strategy, not just your energy. Then planning for the next interaction without taking too big of a bite and over reaching, so we can iteratively spiral up to success.
4. DO: The Intelligent Action
The cycle completes with informed execution. This “Do” is fundamentally different from the first attempt because it incorporates every lesson mined from the “Fail.” It often starts with “Micro-Dos” small, controlled tests to validate your new direction before going all-in.
The “A-Grade” Comeback
The difference between being stuck and being successful is often just a framework. I have seen FLeRD take many student teams from a “D” project to an “A” breakthrough all while learning at a much, much deeper level. They did not get there by working harder; they got there by FLeRDing their way through the failures to achieve ultimate success.
Stop waiting to “heal” from your failures. The most valuable data you possess is locked inside your last mistake.
It’s time to FLeRD it.
Join the Journey
In the coming weeks and months, I will be discussing FLeRD more in-depth, complete with tools and stories about how it has worked and can work for you, your teams, and your family.
It is time to put failure in its proper place. It is not a dead end; it is a means to engage in a journey of improvement toward greater success. I look forward to hearing your thoughts as we move forward together.
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