[How about this book] "I failed"... Saying it is 'Success'

KAIST Failure Research Institute: "Society That Steals Failure"
Diagnosing Our Society Through Analysis of Public Perceptions
People Lacking Immunity to Failure
Great Fear, Low Resilience
An Urgent Need for an Environment to Share Failure

"Failure is the mother of success." It is a correct and valid saying, but people tend to feel more resistance than empathy toward it. Failure itself is frightening, and the probability of rising again after failure is not high. Every week, there is a lottery winner somewhere, but the chance of becoming the protagonist is slim. Enduring failure alone is difficult, and turning it into an achievement feels like a distant possibility. For most people, the probability of achieving success through failure feels vague and far away, like winning the lottery.

DALL·E3

So, what is failure, and how can it be used to establish a causal relationship with success? This book focuses on exploring failure to find that answer. The co-authors?Lee Kwang-hyung, President of KAIST; Cho Sung-ho, Director of the KAIST Failure Research Institute; and Ahn Hye-jung, Research Assistant Professor at the Failure Research Institute?define failure, analyze public perceptions of failure, and diagnose our society.

The authors express concern about the reality that South Korea’s national research and development (R&D) project success rate reaches 99%. They point out that the goals were set in a way that success was inevitable from the start. "R&D, which is responsible for the nation's future growth engines, is the field where innovative challenges are most needed, yet fear of failure limits opportunities for innovation," they warn.

This is why the Failure Research Institute was established at KAIST, the first of its kind in a Korean university. The institute’s purpose is threefold: to reveal and share failures to change perceptions about failure, to transform failure experiences into social assets, and to seek solutions at a structural societal level.

At the Photo Voice event organized by the KAIST Failure Research Lab on the theme of failure, one participating student uploaded a photo of a leaf hanging on a tree. The student said the dry leaf resembled their own appearance among excellent students. KAIST Failure Research Lab

The sense of failure felt by KAIST students is surprisingly low in terms of hurdles. Although their academic achievements are excellent, they experience excessive frustration over small daily difficulties. One KAIST student explained, "Most KAIST students are admitted through the comprehensive student record screening, which means they have never failed even once in any activity related to grades during their three years of high school." Because of their limited failure experiences, their fear of failure is great, and their resilience is lacking. This tendency is similar among students at prestigious foreign universities. In 2017, The New York Times diagnosed this as a ‘failure deficiency.’ It refers to a situation where individuals lack tolerance for failure and cannot solve problems on their own or seek help.

During the process of defining failure, the Failure Research Institute discovered an interesting fact. Many people confuse the ‘feeling of failure’ with ‘real failure.’ When conducting a ‘Photovoice’ project asking KAIST students to capture moments of failure in photos, many students failed to meet the submission quota and instead reconsidered their criteria for failure. Many responded, "I wondered if this was really a big enough event to be called failure."

A photo posted by a student participating in Photovoice. They said they felt a sense of failure upon realizing that their friend's sotbap (rice cooked in a pot) tasted better. KAIST Failure Research Institute

It is also noteworthy that the criteria for failure are highly subjective. The Photovoice results showed that outcomes initially considered successes often turned into failures due to comparisons with others. One student recounted going to a famous restaurant in Daejeon and enjoying a delicious pot rice, thinking, "Today’s menu is a great success," but then feeling a sense of failure upon tasting a friend’s pot rice. Although their own pot rice met an absolute standard, it was considered inferior compared to the friend’s, which was the relative standard. The author explains, "The boundary between success and failure is more ambiguous than we think and can vary greatly depending on our perceptions and interpretations. It is more important to look closely at how we understand past experiences and what meanings we discover than whether we fail or not."

Although failure is said to be the mother of success, not all failures lead to success. According to research by Professor Dashun Wang of Northwestern University, who analyzed grant application data (1985?2015, 140,000 cases), startup investment data (1970?2016, 58,111 startups), and terrorist attack data (1970?2017, about 3,000 terrorist organizations), 26% of researchers, 87% of entrepreneurs, and 42% of terrorists failed to achieve their goals despite continuous attempts.

However, a certain pattern was observed in successful cases. As failures accumulated, the intervals between failures shortened, and some results were achieved. In contrast, in failed cases, there was little change in the intervals between failures, and the outcomes from failures were minimal. The author attributes this difference to the presence or absence of intrinsic motivation. Those with intrinsic motivation find meaning and enjoyment in the activity itself, while those with extrinsic motivation tend to shift their goals to other tasks that are easier to gain external rewards and recognition.

After years of research, the Failure Research Institute discovered a clear core principle for success: to challenge oneself with unique goals and visions. In such cases, failure is not a problem. Because through the process of specifically recording what was learned from failure, reconstructing it to share with others, and sharing it in a psychologically safe environment, success is ultimately achieved.

What is important here is creating a safe environment where failure stories can be comfortably shared. Finding goals and visions that are not shaken by external evaluations is partly possible through individual effort, but establishing a safe environment to share failures requires a societal role. The challenge posed by the Failure Research Institute presents a significant task for our society.

Society That Steals Failure | Written by Ahn Hye-jung, Cho Sung-ho, Lee Kwang-hyung | Wisdom House | 304 pages | 18,500 KRW