From Inc · · 1m 10s
Kerry Washington Refuses to Call Anything a Failure
Kerry Washington’s production company turns failures into forward motion.
In brief
Kerry Washington’s production company turns failures into forward motion. Kerry Washington’s production company avoids labeling failures by focusing on learning from what they control. Originally reported by Inc.
Hedgegate
The event design team faced a truck delivery failure but pivoted to create a successful event.
Kerry Washington’s Take
Kerry Washington says her production company is 'really bad at labeling something as a failure' and prefers to 'fail forward'.
“we like to fail forward”
The Systemic Failure
The vendor dropped the truck, but the team still changed their rental order process to double-check.
The String Quartet
A client never signed a contract, so the system released a string quartet without alert.
Owning the Failure
The team took responsibility for the string quartet and kept the client despite the mistake.
The Fix
The team added a button for verbal confirmations to prevent future failures.
“email/verbal confirm”
Fail Forward
Kerry Washington ties the lessons together: fail forward on what’s yours, let go of what isn’t, and keep building until the second pile gets smaller.
“fail forward on what’s yours, let go of what isn’t, and keep building until the second pile gets smaller”
The essence
Kerry Washington’s production company avoids labeling failures by focusing on learning from what they control.
