#19 - Permission to Fail

Hi, hello, welcome back to my weekly newsletter. After a several-month hiatus, it’s back!

A bit of a rant incoming, so if you’d prefer some links, head to the bottom! This is going to sound weird, but writing things on the Internet is a bit of a bummer. Especially if it’s not super motivational. LinkedIn and social media in general so often show off the successes of others, and rarely highlight failures. I’m sure you’ve seen it (or felt it as well).

This week, I came across this post on LinkedIn that said:

“Leaders don’t see failure, they see unfinished success.”

I began to worry about the leaders just starting out in their careers and how they might read such a slogan. And, excuse my bluntness, but…barf. Failure is not a bad thing! It’s not a dirty word. Failure, especially fast failure, is one of the greatest things we can achieve in business. We tried something, we tested it, and it didn’t work. Great! What did we learn as a result? How do we apply those learnings in the future?

I’d be willing to wager that if you put two individuals or companies side by side and one of them only had wins while the other was split 50/50 between wins and losses, the 50/50 folks would end up better off in the long run. We’ve created a social landscape where bragging about wins is lauded and praised, ending in a swirl of toxic positivity. There’s a great article on this phenomenon “How the Toxic Positivity of LinkedIn Serves the Status Quo.”

I’m tired of slogans and mottos that read this way. “Take that hill!” or “If you believe you can achieve!” Look, sometimes you get kicked in the face. That’s okay! Some of the best lessons I’ve learned were from losses. As humans, our brains have a habit of hiding the wins and making the losses a glaring reminder of where we weren’t good enough. So why not lean into it?

Astro Teller has a great Ted Talk on “The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure,” and it’s a great 15 minutes. It’s not about not failing. It’s about “shifting your perspective.” Going from “I failed” to “I learned so much from that failure,” and building upon it.

Look at SpaceX. Regardless of your feelings on Elon Musk, SpaceX is amazing. The Falcon 9 rocket that would land and touch down on a floating dock to preserve its parts exploded, failed, and failed many more times before it landed successfully.

It’s less about believing you can, and more about doing something without being scared of failure.

Getting off my soap box, I want to add my favorite quote on this subject and it comes from the best movie in the Indiana Jones series (Last Crusade of course). Young Indy has gone on an insane chase to righteously bring an artifact to his father, only to have the cops show up and make him hand over the cross of Coronado. The main guy who’s been chasing him leaves him with the parting words, “You lost today kid…but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

That doesn’t mean you have to like it.

I love that part. Sit with your failures. See how you feel about it. Figure out how to take that feeling and do better next time.

As you’re finishing up your week, give yourself permission to fail. You don’t need to be perfect, and you don’t always need to win. Do your best, learn from your failures, and be better because of it.

Links I Found Helpful

• How to empower your team through autonomy, mastery and purpose
• 20 traits of highly effective project managers
• Are Remote Workers and Their Organizations Drifting Apart?
• Developing high performers
• How Candid Can You Really Be With Your Boss?

How else can I be helpful this week? Let me know in the comments below!

New from Hartley’s Handbook:

• Episode 2 of my new podcast, this episode focuses on prioritization
• My latest 9 books that are helpful for Engineering Managers