I once heard a story about a plant manager in a World War II airplane factory who radically increased his employees' production. The factory operated around the clock in three eight-hour shifts, and he achieved the improvement by writing on the wall the number of airplane engines completed by the previous shift. Each shift wanted to beat the previous shift's performance, and they worked harder to make that happen.

Whether the story is true, I don't know. But it illustrates an important point - that people want to do well, and it helps to show them how they're doing, and give them something to work toward. I personally believe that the competitive element is useful, but not necessary, for this point.

I heard this concept described another way recently. I was listening to a podcast about activism (I think on the excellent Big Vision Podcast, by Britt Bravo). The guest explained that people are often apathetic because they feel that their efforts are just a drop in the bucket. She said that drops can fill a bucket pretty fast, though. What's important is being able to see the bucket, and see all the other drops from other people, so we know we're making progress.

So the important thing is to provide some context, and show people what other people are working on, so you know you're not the only one working on something.

It was with this in mind that I printed a graph of our progress with our response letter backlog. My intern team does a great job of writing letters, but I think the seemingly-endless assignment of response letters must wear down on some of them. To use the metaphor from above, I wanted to make the bucket more visible by showing how many responses we had left. We have been making steady progress through our backlog, so I figured showing our team how we're doing would give everyone a bit of hope - we are doing well, and we're almost done!

I printed out a graph and showed it to the three interns in today, and asked them all to think about how we're going respond to everyone. I explained that I would show the latest graph every day to keep people aware of where we stood. I had expected a few more letters to come in, but was surprised to have nine letters in my inbox in the next half hour! What an effect!

We'll see whether this sort of effect is sustained over the long run, or if it is only a short-term boost that only occurs the first time I show someone the graph. But I have hope that it will really help give people an understanding of where we are, and remind people to focus on what they can do to help us get to our final destination.

In my last post (Giving the lie to failure as a learning experience) I decried the focus on failure as a learning experience. I argued that success and failure both offer learning opportunities if you really extend yourself, and that neither offer much learning opportunity if you are doing the same thing you've always done. The main point is to put yourself in new situations, and learn from unexpected results.

So what should you learn when you're surprised by new experiences? I think as humans, we're all pretty bad at turning conscious learning into actual action. Studies have shown that our intentions are not necessarily good predictors of our actions. Anyone who has ever made a New Years' resolution and fallen short of her goals is aware of this fact.

So I recommend asking yourself two questions the next time you're surprised by success or failure:

• What have you learned about yourself? Think about what the unexpected result reveals about your own traits. Self-reflection is important and, I believe, underused.
• What new habits or practices will you implement as a result of what you have learned? Too often we learn something, but don't take action in response to what we have learned.

What are other questions you think it would be a good idea to ask?

I've always been bothered by the truism that we learn more when we fail than when we succeed. Is anyone else bothered by this?

The saying may be objectively true - we probably don't reflect as much upon our successes as we do upon our failures. We rest on our laurels. But platitude is repeated so often, and in so many forms, that it is really more than a descriptive statement - it becomes advice.

First, I should state that I do think the statement has some value - just that it is phrased poorly, and causes us to focus on the wrong thing. Here's what I think is valuable about it:

• It encourages us to get out of a rut and try new ventures. Most of us could probably benefit from this advice.
• It may salve the wounds of failure. (Think Aesop's story about sour grapes.)
  

But I think it fails by focusing on the failure as the cause of learning. The failure doesn't provide the learning opportunity; it's the new venture that provides that opportunity, whether we fail or succeed. It may be a fact that failure is more likely to cause us to consider why we failed, but the cliche in its normal form doesn't capture this idea. Instead, we should be saying something like "Upon success, reflect!"

The expression starts off right by getting us out of our comfort zones, but misdirects us once we're trying new things by suggesting that success is somehow counterbalanced by the loss of learning we'll experience if we manage to pull off our new venture. When you try something new, focus on succeeding. Believe me, you'll learn lots. Some of my best learning has been when I've tried for a goal I thought was out of my reach, and unexpectedly achieved it.

The saying's salving property is a double-edged sword, as well, as it can provide justification for failure that doesn't actually create a learning opportunity. You won't learn much or anything if you fail without leaving your rut. In the past I've taken on projects I knew I didn't have the resources or time to complete. I knew all along that I couldn't really complete the projects, because I knew I wasn't doing the things I needed to do for success. Guess what? I was right, and I didn't learn anything. The key isn't failing; it's trying something new, and working hard to make it a success.

We may fail more when we try new things because we're out of our depth, but it's a mistake to praise failure. I once heard an executive give the advice, "Fail fast." His idea was to encourage people to try lots of new things, many of which would fail. His idea is a creative repackaging of the original, but I don't think it solves the problem. I'd like to encourage you with my own advice: Fail smart. Succeed smart. And try new things.

Sayings often only catch on if they're catchy and memorable. What are your ideas for replacements for this worn-out expression?