Are we losing the ability to innovate through trial and error in the public and private sectors?

I grew up in Baltimore and remained there until 1966 when I left to join the Army (and never returned except on brief visits). The Orioles taught me about failure. We had a joke in those days: What has nine a$$holes and lives in the basement. Yes, they never placed anywhere but last. I never saw them win even one game. (Of course, they won the World Series in 1966, but I was gone then) I guess that may be part of the reason I never feared failure. I learned to embrace it and to learn from it watching the Orioles.

How about kids today? Where are they going to learn to cope with failure? It's not allowed. Don't give grades. Don't keep score. Don't hurt their little psyches. Don't you think that kind of conditioning is going to have an effect on their adult perceptions?

In my experience there have always been areas where trial and error make sense generally in the planning stages and those execution stages that are easily reversible CPO Tim Dickey. There are some areas where there is no room for trial and era because of significant risk to life, limb, physical property and/or mission.
Good leaders and managers know that giving subordinates the freedom to fail in training and limited operations is one of the most efficient ways to help them grow which improves the team.
Bad leaders always micromanage and have little tolerance for failure or deviation form the plan - seemingly forgetting that they were in training at one time.

Trial and error/experimentation has it's place but most of us do not operate in that place. We are people that need to execute a job to the best of our abilities, deliver results based upon established principals.

In R&D there should be an acceptance of some level of it. This likely varies by industry or technology etc.

Being a teacher or a cop or a salesman or an electrician or a doctor etc. does not really allow for it. We cannot live with trial and error as a rule. We need people effectively and efficiently executing, every day.