Everyone makes mistakes. Within every organization, mistakes are made (Van Dyck et al., 2005). Therefore, “learning from your mistakes” is seen as very important and valuable. If you learn from your mistakes, at least you didn't make them for nothing. That would be nice, because mistakes often have negative consequences (loss of time, loss of face, image damage, financial damage, etc. see for example Van Dyck et al., 2005). But do people learn from mistakes? The short answer is no. I give the nuanced answer in this blog. For example, I describe why it is difficult for people to learn from their mistakes and what ways there are to make learning from mistakes possible anyway.

Do people learn from their mistakes?

There is a fair amount of research showing that people do not learn (or do not learn enough) from their mistakes (e.g., Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019; 2022; Johnson, 2004; Yerushalmi & Polingher, 2006). For example, it appears that people learn less from their failures than from their successes (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019). In this study, people participated in “The Facing Failure Game”. First, they were given a quiz with two answer options per question (A or B). Half of the people received positive feedback for a correct answer (“this answer is correct!”), while the other half received negative feedback for an incorrect answer (“this answer is incorrect!”). Because there were only two answer options, people could potentially learn what the correct answer was from both negative and positive feedback. A second round examined whether people had learned from their mistakes. This was not the case. People appeared to have learned more from positive feedback (“this answer is correct!”) than from negative feedback (“this answer is incorrect”). The researchers found the same pattern over and over again in different settings, with different groups of people and with different types of quiz questions. People who had received feedback on their errors scored no better than if they had guessed each answer. Whereas people who had received positive feedback continuously performed better. In other words, people consistently learned less from making mistakes than from doing things right. 

Why don't people learn from their mistakes?

• Errors receive little attention

The same research also found that people pay little attention to things they do wrong (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019). If you don't pay attention to something, you can't learn anything. In the facing failure games people appeared to have poor recall of wrong answers. As a result, they could therefore not do much better in a follow-up round either, because they did not remember what they had done wrong and what they had not. Why is that so?

• Mistakes undermine self-confidence and commitment

Making mistakes undermines people's self-confidence. People have a strong need to feel good about themselves and feel that they are competent (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2022). So even though people may want to learn from their mistakes, sometimes that outweighs the stronger need to have a good self-image. Making mistakes can also undermine commitment. When people make mistakes, they feel they “can't do it anyway. This makes them less motivated to try again in the future. Or, in other words, making mistakes can create a “let's do it anyway” feeling. 

• Learning from mistakes takes extra brainpower

Understanding what you can learn from an error, that is, what the information value of an error is, is difficult. If you are told that an answer is right then it is easy to understand what it means. You are correct. But if you are told that an answer was wrong then another step (or even several steps) is required. You then know you got it wrong, but not why, or what was the right answer. So to get to the right answer you have to dive in deeper. This means that learning from your mistakes often requires more cognitive effort than learning things you do well. Making that commitment is difficult when motivation and commitment have already dropped because of making mistakes.

How can you do learn from mistakes?

• Learn from others' mistakes

Your own mistakes threaten your self-image. This makes it difficult to learn from your mistakes. Other people's mistakes, on the other hand, have no impact on your self-esteem. Learning from other people's mistakes is therefore easier, the facing failure games. When people look along with someone else, they learn as much from someone else's mistakes as from someone else's successes. Moreover, other people's mistakes were given more attention than their own, so there is also a greater potential to learn from them. Negative role models so can be very useful, to get a good idea of what you not should do in a specific situation. 

• Let others learn from your mistakes

By the way, mistake-makers themselves benefit from sharing mistakes made. If you share a mistake you made with someone else, you can give that other person tips on how to avoid such mistakes. Highlighting what can be learned from other people's mistakes is a good way to ensure that people learn more from mistakes (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2022). For example, we have a monthly fuck-up Friday, where employees can share their mistakes made with colleagues. In a previous blog I described all the positive effects that holding fuck-up Fridays has brought to our office. 

• See mistakes apart from yourself

Another way to still learn from mistakes made is to see the mistakes as separate from yourself. So ask yourself not “what did I do wrong here?” but, for example, “what did Florien do wrong here?”. When you look at your own mistakes with an outsider's perspective, it is easy to leave your self-image out of it (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2022). Remind yourself that making mistakes is an opportunity to learn. Research shows that having a “growth mindset” causes people to learn more from their mistakes. So ask yourself “what can I learn from this?” or “what can I glean from this about a good approach for this situation?”. 

• Boost self-confidence

Look at yourself as someone who has something can rather than as someone who has something not can. For example, you can explain what you don't must do. Affirming your competencies, qualities and commitment is a good strategy for learning from mistakes. Remind yourself what you are good at, why something is important to you and that you are committed to achieving your goals. Do the same for others. When giving negative feedback on others, also emphasize your confidence in their competencies. 

Conclusion

Despite the potential value of learning from mistakes, people actually learn very little from their own mistakes. Still, there are ways to learn more from mistakes, such as learning from other people's mistakes and boosting your self-confidence.... All in all, learning from your mistakes is not easy, but neither is it impossible. I am confident that you are capable of learning a lot from your next mistake. What mistakes have you learned the most from? 

References

Cramwinckel, F. M., & Klaassens, I. (2022). We shared a year of our fuck-ups... And these are the consequences! https://www.onlinedialogue.nl/artikelen/wij-deelden-een-jaar-lang-onze-fuck-ups-en-dit-zijn-de-gevolgen/ 

Deci & Ryan (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4),

227-268. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1449618 

Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2022). You think failure is hard? So is learning from it. Perspectives on Psychologial Science. https://doi-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/10.1177/17456916211059817 

Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2019). Not learning from failure-The greatest failure of all. Psychological Science, 30(12), 1733-1744. DOI: 10.1177/0956797619881133 

Johnson, A. (2004). We learn from our mistakes-don't we? Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications, 12(2). https://doi-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/10.1177/106480460401200206 

Van Dyck, C., Frese, M., Baer, M., & Sonnentag, S. (2005). Organizational error management culture and its impact on performance: a two-study replication. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1228.

Yerushalmi, E. & Polingher, C. (2006). Guiding students to learn from mistakes. Physics Education, 41(6). https://iopscience-iop-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/article/10.1088/0031-9120/41/6/007/meta