Comments on: Leonardo’s Kitchen Nightmare

By: pfeifferdesign

pfeifferdesign — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nicely done. Thanks for reminding us how important it is to look at our failures positively so we can learn from them. Also, “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” is an awesome book! Everyone should read it every day. (I like what you named the image, too – still looking suave, even when facing failure.)

By: corrinneh

corrinneh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A reluctance to face failure is a reluctance to learn. Avoiding failure is avoiding the opportunity to learn.
We can all stay in our safe places but wouldn’t it be boring. Failing and learning from our mistakes is how we become better, and it provides some of the most interesting and exciting parts of our lives.

I am all for ‘failing’ but failing in order to learn, not ‘failing to learn’.

By: davidcdunkle

davidcdunkle — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I take away a different lesson from Leonardo’s nightmare.

Perhaps he was not afraid to fail in the kitchen, but without him having very much domain experience, one could have predicted that he would fantastically fail, as he did. His design may have been futuristic, but failed in the realm of basic usability. Why did the food burn? Because the cooks couldn’t use the new oven correctly. Why did the conveyor belt fail? Because the task completion times were not properly integrated into the design. Basically, if Leonardo had done a better job planning and designing, his plan and design would have executed fine.

We all see things like this happening every day in industry. A brave proponent fearlessly pushed his design forward, assuring all with his confidence that it will work wonderfully. When it doesn’t, it becomes easy to see why it failed. Yes, we can learn from failures, but what about not failing in the first place? Being afraid to fail does have its place- it makes us recheck, retest and rethink ideas before execution, so failure may be averted. Had Leonardo had a little more fear of failure, to replace his visions of grandeur, the event might now be known as “Leonardo’s Great Feast” rather than his nightmare.