Failure Ink

Amazing includes failure, frequent failure. Hearing about a failure, we naturally ask, ‘And then what happened? What did you learn? What eventually worked?’ A brief episode with Health Hats.

Total Failure, Inc.

My 9-year-old grandson reads to me, and I read to him on Zoom. He’s reading me a book about Timmy Failure with a polar bear friend, Total. Their business is the Total Failure Detective Agency. What a hoot! I read Tom Sawyer and now Huckleberry Finn.

I counseled my various teams over the years, if we don’t fail several times a week, we’re not pushing the envelope, not doing our jobs. Tightrope walkers, pharmacists, and airplane manufacturers might disagree. Still, for innovators, learners, and leaders, failure as a virtue is a hard sell, really for almost anyone. My teams, my colleagues in leadership, editorial review boards start by thinking I’m crazy. Sometimes they eventually get it, sometimes not. Leadership usually wants to get As all the time. In one health system I worked for, I reported that we completed medication reconciliation in 40% of admissions. (Medication reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking — including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route — and comparing that list against the physician’s orders to provide correct medications). OMG, that’s awful! They said…