Coaching the Zone of Acceptable Failure
Coaching the Zone of Acceptable Failure
During a recent leadership training with a local company, while discussing delegation and employee development, I introduced the concept of the Zone of Acceptable Failure.
Strauss (2025) explained, “the zone of acceptable failure, or ZOAF, is the overlapping region between the safety threshold and the boundary of knowledge, where a person can push past their boundary of knowledge without incurring intolerable risk…a rich environment to facilitate learning.”
The Boundary of Knowledge is the safe zone where we operate most often. Here, we employ the solutions and techniques we are comfortable with. Staying within the Boundary of Knowledge makes sense because we often confront multiple challenges and need a sense of predictability to keep our head above water. The concern is that we are limiting learning opportunities for ourselves, our team, and the organization.
Moving beyond the Boundary of Knowledge into the ZOAF provides a rich opportunity for learning and development. However, how a team or organization makes meaning of failure has a tremendous impact on learning. If it is psychologically unsafe to fail, the ZOAF is small or nonexistent, and learning is mostly limited to subtle variations within the Boundary of Knowledge. If failure is seen as an opportunity, innovation, growth, and learning can flourish.
As individual team members and leaders, we have a chance to grow within the ZOAF. We first need to know what is acceptable and safe. How do we know? We can ask our manager. Here are some suggested questions:
What will happen if I fail?
What support can you provide me with? (consider what support you need first)
How will we learn from this, whether it succeeds or fails?
As a coach, or leader taking on the role of coach, you have an opportunity to support learning and development within the ZOAF. By establishing what is within boundaries of the ZOAF and coaching them through the process of learning throughout, you can maximize personal, team, and organizational learning.
How can we coach someone through the ZOAF?
First, don’t force it. They, not you, must have the agency to decide on pursuing the ZOAF.
Get to know the existing system, such as how failure is handled, the level of psychological safety, the level of support available, the methods available to learn from successes and mistakes, and if you are part of the organization - your and your team’s comfort within the ZOAF.
Ask what their learning and development goals are.
Ask them to consider some small steps in which to test success/failure.
Set up a consistent check-in schedule and process to monitor progress and learning goals.
Now, consider any projects you can be part of and what steps you can take to prepare to push through the ZOAF and learn.
Want to talk more about it? Set up a free discovery session here.
Strauss, J. (2025). Failing Safely: Expanding the zone of acceptable failure.
Michael Dillon, Ed.D., ACC
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