My first encounter with the concept of celebrating failure was in New York City with ViacomCBS.
I had been invited to lead a brainstorming session for 100 team members for the morning of a full day off-site meeting.
After lunch, the client had scheduled the balance of the day for programming he called ‘The Failure Show’. I was so intrigued that when he invited me to stay, I jumped at the opportunity.
The concept was simple. Teams took the stage and presented concepts, programs, and promotions that had failed miserably.
After each presentation, the audience was tasked with flipping the failure on its head and turning it into a unique and profitable opportunity.
The process was life changing for me. Never before had I seen failure celebrated like an award show.
When I returned home, I was so struck by what I had experienced with in NYC, that I starting researching the concept of celebrating failure.
What I discovered was that there is a global organization called Fuckup Nights that is dedicated to doing exactly this … celebrating failure! Their tag line is ‘We live life without filters by sharing stories of failure’.
@fuckupnights is a thing in over 90 countries around the globe! You can join and attend their events where you spend your time listening to people tell their stories of how they have failed in business.
They even have a research arm called Fuckup Knowledge (formerly The Failure Institute).They have written papers and published books on business and professional failures !
I have personally never attended an event … at least not yet. I plan to.
In the meantime, I would love to hear from you on the subject of celebrating failure. Have you done it, and if so how? Please send me a note. We would love to feature your celebration of failure story in the January edition of FootNotes®!
