How To Fail: The Instructional Designer Edition

Unpopular opinion: I LOVE failure. It's important to embrace when things go wrong especially in the Learning & Development industry. If you've ever been on one of my teams you've heard me discuss failure and the importance of knowing HOW to fail. Humbly I offer my playbook to you. Here is how I choose to fail. With that, I encourage you to do something today that might not work well.

I will never forget the interview where it happened, with a smirk, he asked, " Let's talk about failure. Tell me about a time you failed and your thoughts about it." I was overcome with excitement by the question and launched right in.

"You know what would be really funny?"

"Okay, let me just start by saying if you're ever working with me on something and I lean over and say, 'you know what would be really funny?' You should know we are about to fail, and it's going to be super fun."

The fully story is that I was on a committee charged with creating an employee onboarding course for our department. This course was to serve as an additional resource for new employees on our Learning Technology team. The learning objectives were simple enough, the stakes were low, the course didn't include any compliance items. The energy on the committee was low and unenthusiastic.

These are the spaces that are a playground!

Finally, I couldn't contain my excitement any longer. I leaned in and I was like, "Guys! This is amazing! We can do whatever we want!" They laughed - I love a blank slate.

How To Fail #1 - Break Your Tools

This first tip should be a juicy one. It’ll keep your readers with you.

Format each tip's title to H2 to keep your post neat.

How To Fail #2 - Isolate The Impact

The middle tips should go into a bit more detail, explain more. Keep them short and to-the-point. E.g., if you're writing a post about how to blog, you can write something like: "Decide how often you want to blog. Be realistic about it. Think you can blog twice a month? Commit to once a month and stick to it."

"Include quotes by experts in your post to add credibility." – SEO specialist

Tip #3 - Fail When There Is A Backup Plan

Feel free to include personal details and examples. The more relatable you or your website is, the more you connect with your readers.

Tip #4 - Values First Fail

Don’t Forget to Add a Closing Statement

Keep it short. Restate your main point and tell your readers what you want them to do next. Don’t be shy. Just tell them: Buy Now, Click Here, Read This, and link to it. You can also invite them to leave a comment below your post.