Why the conservation industry would be better if we started talking about our failures

A wonderful man called Aaron, shout out if you happen to be reading this, once gave me some life-altering advice which was to “make shitty pots.” Individuals who know me in person will know this mantra well, as it is the guiding force behind all the advice I ever give, and all the actions I ever take. Let me explain.

Just say you want to take up pottery. You could have all the best clay, gear, kiln and studio, but regardless of your set-up, your first pot will likely not be the best pot you ever make. To get to your best pot, you will first need to make tens if not hundreds of shitty pots first as you learn and uncover your technique. So considering this, why not just get your shitty pots out of the way. The more you make shitty pots, the closer you will get to your best pot.

Another way you could look at this is to fail fast. Test ideas and concepts before investing money, time and resources into them so that if they don’t work, you can move on to your next idea, concept or technique. Don’t worry, these are just shitty pots you’re working on at the moment, so you can be a bit experimental.

The thing to remember here is that we cant make shitty pots in a workplace culture that ONLY wants to see our best pots every time. So here is why, as an industry, we need to start embracing failure if we want to be committed to saving species, ecosystems and our futures.

Let’s start with culture

Okay enough of the pots, let’s get serious here. Staff can’t be failure-positive in a conservation organisation if the management doesn’t provide a safe space to fail in, it’s as simple as this.

I have talked about my shocking experiences with workplace culture in How to Conserve Conservationists, and too, many of you may have experienced a culture where it is almost unsafe not to put your best foot forward. Sometimes the consequences for not succeeding are as severe as being let go, reprimanded or socially ostracised. Sometimes it’s not as bad as this, but the competitive culture curated to only share successes can oftentimes not leave room for healthy discussions about what hasn’t been working.

These organisations are ultimately hindering themselves as staff may feel inclined to leave if there isn’t space to grow in a safe environment and, other times, staff may stay but feel stunted if they can’t work on improvements in their projects or team dynamic. Either way, this negligence leads to swapping out a lot of little harmless fails for more largescale and detrimental failures.

Why the industry isn’t friends with failure

I will never forget my time volunteering for a wildlife conservation organisation where the owners were too afraid to release rescued wildlife into the wild because of the inevitably low success rate of doing so. I can imagine the pressure of a donor-funded organisation that needs to appease members of the public to continue to fund their work. It’s understandable why they may face backlash for reporting that a release ended in the demise of 60% of rehabilitated animals and that the donors may feel as if they have just funded some sort of massacre. This is especially worse if donors support or adopt specific individuals and are kept updated with their stories, only then to find out that they didn’t survive.

Resources in the conservation world are often scarce and organisations, projects and programs are often competing for a few grants, funding opportunities and resources. The pressure to succeed heightens if there is the added fear of wasting resources on failure. What if we don’t report any success stories from the money we received from this grant? Will they never select us for funding again? Already, many small NGOs often opperate on the smell of an oily rag, so to speak. In these situations, the few paid staff that an NGO has may feel as if their jobs may be at risk, if not the future of their projects, if they don’t appear to be succeeding in their missions.

A handy dandy solution

Imagine a world where conservation academics, NGOs, community groups and businesses came together to talk about what didn’t work. Whether it be at a failure conference, chat groups, meetings, reports, forums or presentations- we could all help eachother save a lot of our precious time and resources if we were willing to have these conversations.

It baffles me to think that across the globe, so many conservation projects are making the exact same mistakes because they had no idea that they have been made hundreds of times before. If we actually cared about the preservation of ecosystems, habitats and species, we would put our egos aside to share this crucial knowledge so that we could all use our resources and time intentionally and with purpose.

Communication is key

If donors and supporters of conservation projects had a realistic view of conservation setbacks, success rates and challenges, they wouldn’t be disheartened by realistic survival rates of released animals. They may even be more supportive to know that their funds are contributing to neuanced problem-solving and novel solutions to age old problems, instead of perpetuating the same issues time and time again.

Looking inward within organisations, it is also important to foster a work culture that rewards problem-solving, failing fast and adapting to challenges. Recently, I was leading a workshop for an NGO whos staff confessed to their leadership team that they felt like they had to always bring success stories to the weekly team meetings and that there was no space set aside to discuss what hasn’t been working. As a result, some staff felt a wash of shame if they had nothing momentous to report to compete with the songs of success sung by other staff members.

The writing is on the wall

Those who have been with Lonely Conservationists for a while will know of our failure wall. This wall is a safe space to anonymously share your failures with others to have these experiences normalised and not shamefully hidden away in your brain for you to dwell on of a night time. If I ever become a manager or have an office with staff in it, I would love to create a real-life failure wall where everyone could stick sticky notes on it to normalise all of the mistakes and learnings that have happened within my team. If project officers know, with sticky-note proof, that management staff aren’t perfect, it can really help in swatting away that pesky impostor syndrome and remind us that no matter what our role is, we are all beautifully flawed human beings.

These stories are not just important to share for the sake of others, organisations or donors, but these stories could very well land you a job. Often times, hiring organisations will ask you how you have overcome challenging situations or people and how you have delt with projects that didn’t go to plan. For these moments, your failures will be your key assets in unlocking the next stage in your career. Wallah! your shitty pots have magically become tools for you to store away for when you need them!

Care Homework

MAKE SHITTY POTS! Make so many shitty pots! Weather they be badly sewen clothes, badly rollerbladed blades, horrific tasting muffins or uneven shelves- just start making and doing. After I started embracing my shitty pots, I started leaving imperfections on purpose, just to show the world that these are my very special shitty pots (and I love them).

For more information on failure-positivity in the conservation industry, listen to this podcast episode on failure or try sharing your failure to the failure wall. How to Conserve Conservationists also has a chapter on failure, but you’re probably not surprised about that.