My friend Josepha said this in response to concerns about the backlash that the WordPress 6.4 release team could face when faced with a hard decision. Like most hard decisions, it was one that didn’t have any absolute right or an absolute wrong answer. But as the West Wing taught us, there are very few of those anyway.

Every once in a while, every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts

Jed Bartlet, The West Wing

I have long used the idea that Failure is a Gift. It’s an idea that I got from improv comedy. One time while performing the chair I was sitting on broke. I could have gotten angry and ruined the scene, but instead, it became the focus of the scene. The chair’s failure was my gift.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Thomas A. Edison

As a leader, it’s easy to want to step in and help prevent problems but it’s rare that you learn as much from a lecture as you do experience. It’s better to create an environment where people can fail, than to never allow them to fail. Instead of stopping failure, think about the cost of the failure. Some failures are easy to roll back. It’s only when the cost to fix an issue is high in whatever cost you are considering, emotional, temporal, monetary, etc that a leader should really be trying to step in.

We must let the new growth of learning have some sunlight and wind along with their shade and rain!

Josepha Haden Chomphosy

Sunlight, Wind, Shade and Rain are all necessary for a hearty crop. Failure, Mistakes, Victories, and Successes are all needed for a hearty individual. Create space for learning. Allow for mistakes to build resilience, perseverance, and humility.