The 0.25 Second That Makes All the Difference

When it comes to errors, most of us share a passionate and simple opinion: we don't like them very much. We strive to avoid them, to conceal them, to avoid repeating them.  As a species, we are all essentially allergic to mistakes.

But there's another way of thinking about error, and it begins with a story I heard recently about Marina Semyonova, a master teacher at the Bolshoi Ballet in the fifties.

The story goes like this: Every year, Semyonova would hold a tryout for the Bolshoi, which was ...