How many times have you heard successful athletes, artists, CEOs, and entrepreneurs say they learned more from failure than success? It’s become almost a cliché.
But what if they’re only talking about one particular kind of failure?
I recently picked up Manu Kapur’s book Productive Failure: Unlocking Deeper Learning Through the Science of Failing. Until then, I wasn’t even aware failure had a science behind it. Kapur argues that not all failures are created equal—and that distinction matters.
As he explains, productive failure comes from attempting something just beyond your current abilities. It’s the kind of failure that happens while stretching, experimenting, and learning. That’s very different from failing because you didn’t prepare, didn’t care, or simply mailed it in.
Let’s think about two separate air personalities.
One walks into the studio having done almost no prep. The show falls flat because there was never much effort behind it. Nothing stands out. That’s not productive failure. That’s neglect.
The other spends hours creating a new listener contest, tries a different storytelling approach, or experiments with a new benchmark feature. It bombs. Listeners don’t respond.
Guess which one I’d rather coach tomorrow morning?
This starts with management. Too often, we blame the talent without first asking what kind of failure we’re actually seeing. Program directors and managers have to recognize the difference before they can coach it effectively.
I’ve seen and experienced too many managers who react to both failures exactly the same way.
They criticize both equally. But they shouldn’t.
One deserves accountability. The other deserves coaching.
If every failed experiment is treated like poor performance, talented people eventually stop experimenting.
They stop taking chances. They stop bringing you new ideas. Eventually, they discover the safest way to survive is simply not to fail. Unfortunately, it’s also the safest way to stop growing. Maybe that’s one reason innovation sometimes feels so scarce in radio today.
Coaches don’t bench quarterbacks for throwing interceptions while learning a new offense. They bench quarterbacks who refuse to learn that new offense in the first place. It’s important for any manager to recognize that there are three simple categories of failure:
Negligent failure — poor preparation, lack of effort, repeating avoidable mistakes.
Productive failure — calculated risks, experimentation, learning something new and not being afraid to do any of it.
Repeated failure without learning — perhaps the most dangerous of all because nothing changes. (A good coach shouldn’t allow a talent to even get to number three!)
Once you know the above, it becomes a simple coaching process, but you have to be able to understand one thing – Great coaches don’t eliminate failure. Better said, coaches SHOULDN’T eliminate failure. They should eliminate careless failure while creating an environment where productive failure is expected. Because if no one on your team is ever failing, chances are no one is stretching either. The best coaching cultures don’t ask, “Did you fail?” They ask, “What did you learn?”
I’d much rather coach someone who failed trying to create something memorable than someone who succeeded doing the minimum.
