Last week , while browsing through tweets, I hit a strange tweet , a resume' of Mr Johannes Haushofer, an assistant professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University . He had published on twitter handle his CV listing career failures. It was an unusual CV. This document of his contained sections titled , "Degree programmes I didn't get in, Research funding I didn't get , Paper rejections from academic journals , Academic positions and fellowships I didn't get, and awards and scholarships I didn't get". He also wrote that he created this document to give some perspective that most of what he tried he failed but these failures were often invisible while successes were visible.
This tweet of Mr Johannes Haushofer became darling of twitterati . At the time when I saw the tweet, it was retweeted 700 times and had received about the same number of likes. The comments on his tweet were many , describing his CV of failures as beautiful, brilliant and inspiring. People showed extraordinary interest in this tweet which perhaps prompted the professor to quip that CV of his failures has received way more attention than his entire body of academic work.
I got attracted to this tweet of professor, I don't know , why of it . I read his CV of failures twice and tried to understand why people and I too, embraced it. I tried to figure out , what is there in someone's list of failures that is seen by many as inspiring and brilliant. There are many questions and doubts lurking in my mind
1. What is there in list of failures that is inspiring?
2. Who are the people that found CV of failures of the professor as brilliant, beautiful and inspiring ?
3. Are these the people who have achieved in their profession something of which they are proud of? Or
4. Are these the people who are struggling to achieve their goals? Or
5. Are these the people who have withered under series of failures? Or
6. Do these people see something intrinsically attractive and innovative in CV of failures independent of their own failures and successes?
7. Is it right to publish one's list of failures when there is nothing substantial to show of one's successes?
8. Had the people who found professor's document inspiring some knowledge of his academic successes, too?
9. Has Mr Johannes Haushofer position as Assistant Professor at Princeton University something to do with the type of comments he received on his CV of failures?
It is almost impossible to get answers to these questions. Only way of getting reasonably good conclusion is by conducting some sort of survey thereby collecting responses from large sections of people on appropriately designed template, which can then be conclusively interpreted by team of experts. But it is a huge exercise which requires lot of investment. No such data based conclusions are around to come . I, therefore, decided to rest for answers on my own intuition, by doing sort of thought experiment, by putting these questions , one at a time, to myself and seek answers to each of them without , as far as possible, getting biased The failures and successes are closely connected to our emotional well being. So while thinking and preparing for answers to these kind of questions my emotions , both good and bad, will come into play. I felt I should listen to all my emotions and factor them into my answers. Without going into answer of each question separately, I feel the CV of failures is an inspiring, brilliant and beautiful document for me except when I am a person who has nothing to show for success or I am a person whom failures have withered so much so that sense of disillusionment has set in. While arriving at my conclusions, I have also assumed that
a) I know some stories of success of the person whose list of failures is before me. Or
b) I know about his position in an organisation where he works
With conscious understanding of exclusions and assumptions made, I believe a large section of people see CV of failures inspiring for a reason. It may be because common people relate to failures more than to successes but they are afraid to own their failure and do not want to talk about them. Here they happen to come across a university professor who proudly published his long list of failures in public domain. They could discern his perspective of writing about failures as innovative and humble way of describing journey of success. The lines of Thomas Edison, "I have not failed , I have just found 10000 ways that won't work" are the most quoted lines which talk about journey of success. But it seems to me that people don't relate to it in the manner to get inspired. They would relate better to living a persons , one like this professor . He is an employee in a university . He has to manage his boss and cater to his customers, students in his case. He has to look after his family too besides maintaining high level of commitment and motivation to further his career . He has to earn promotions and incentives by show of his achievements. They see in him a person like them, who has multiple demands on him. He is seen as fearless person who is not afraid of expressing about his failures and at the same time as highly motivated to achieve his career goals .This could be the most compelling reason that people got attracted to his CV of failures .They also found his method of describing failures as invisible components of success, both innovative and inspiring . It shows them a beautiful way out to express their failures courageously without any of fear rejection.
The underlying message of 'CV of failures'' that I could get is that failures are usual occurrences in one's career. These are in a way building blocks of success . Success without failures on the way would be bland. This underlying message is powerful and appealing which can prompt people to share voluntarily their list of failures. This prompted behavioural change can be utilised by organisations in their HR practices and interventions. CV of failures in combination with CV of achievements can be used as one of the tools for selecting right candidates for senior positions. The CV of failures of probable candidate will give an insight into two most important traits felt required for higher positions, one about the staying power to pursue the goals and other about means employed in the past to achieve successes. It, with some modifications, can also be used by organisations while considering the promotions for senior positions. At this juncture I am not sure , if world HR fraternity has taken note of this unusual CV of Professor Johannes Haushofer and in case they have , what is in their minds about its practical uses. It will be highly debatable proposition whether CV of failures can be used in HR practices in highly structured and hierarchical organisations . Let me leave this part of story to HR practitioners to unravel.
We are living in very exciting phase of human civilisation. Artificial intelligence and digitisation are in the process of redefining everything that is around us. Internet , digitisation and artificial intelligence is transforming the world in a big way. This transformation , in the longer run, would lift human civilisation to newer heights of development. But on the way it would radically change the definition of work and nature of work that humans would be doing. It seems to me that what large section of people are doing in offices, in factories, in markets and at other workplaces today, all that would cease be there as work or profession for humans in another few years. On one hand a huge human effort, their collaborations and team work is required to enable this big and historical transformation but on the other hand workers and employees fear loss of jobs, because of it. The fear of unknown and uncertainty will have its impact on motivation levels of workers and employees which may obliquely act as drag on intended transformation . Thus, it is in the interest of society to keep motivational levels of workers and employees high and prepare them for future challenges. In fast changing work environment innovative thinking, collaborations and re-skilling are keys to survive and be part of big transformation. It is admitted fact that psychological safety is sine-qua-non for better innovation and decision making . The psychological safety is to give people comfort of admitting mistakes, opportunity of learning from failures and let them openly share their ideas. It is here I believe underlying message of " CV of Failures" can be used for self improvement and inspiring teams for delivering innovations . It will provide a way out for team members to express their failures without fear of rejection and ridicule. This freedom to express failures and openly exchange ideas will unlock big chunks of dormant energy of a team which will fuel it to deliver successes and innovations. More successes and innovations of a team in turn will release more energy and yet more delivery of innovations, thus forming a virtuous cycle of energy & innovations . Also each success and innovation delivered by a team will be more gratifying to it . Most importantly, failures will no longer be seen as something separate from successes.
The concept can also be employed for self improvement in areas of motivation and emotional well being. One way of its use for self improvement is to make journal entries of failures and successes. After a period of six months or
year , go back to the journal and contemplate over these entires leisurely with free mind. We will come to know that successes have come to us through series of failures. We have persevered through career and other lows before we reached where we stand . This awareness about our own journey of successes or yet to achieve goals will be a big source of inspiration. It is not to say that there won't be any more failures, failures will be there but would be recognised differently, as components of success
2 comments:
Success journey is not complete without any failure.
I hold the same view.
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