Brutal Truth # 3 that every Employee Needs to Hear

Brutal Truths Every Employee Needs to Hear

I do not trust someone who has never failed. A person who has always won and gotten what they wanted is a dangerous person. Generally they get a ‘God complex’ and begin to believe they are invincible. Failure humbles you. Failure makes you go back to the drawing board.

It is important to understand that you are human and thus subject to human frailty. In some situations you may lack Emotional Intelligence. I’m that person. I can be a bull in a China shop and destroy people. I do it routinely. Not intentionally, but I can weaponize my intellect. Failure has made me more cautious and self aware. It’s not failure per se that is the issue, it’s how you rise out of the situation in which you failed.

I have had to learn patience. I was born for this instant gratification generation. I was born for instant communication. I love it. I’m energized by being able to share my thoughts as they come to my head. As my children say though ‘Mum move in silence!’ I have had to learn that not everything needs to be broadcast. Need to know is very important.

Failure breeds self awareness if one chooses to self correct. As lacking in emotional intelligence as I am, I need good people around me to process my shortcomings and help me improve.

Failure helps keep one humble. I’m a Leo and I am built for arrogance and ego driven initiatives. Imagine if I had never stumbled. I would be insufferable. Motherhood humbled me because it is both a blessing and a curse. When your mother says to you I pray one day you will have children - it’s both a blessing and a curse. I truly believe, Musikavanhu - the Creator, gives you children who irritate your spirit because they are a mirror to your soul. In your children you find yourself. Each child provides a key to my inner child and the answers to some of my ‘why’ questions.

As a mother I have had some spectacular failures. As I say to my children all the time, ‘I’m definitely one of the reasons you will need therapy’. It’s true because I was brought up a certain way, thus I default to what I know which is how I was brought up. In my time children were seen but not heard. My children are living in an age of self expression and speaking up. My children will call out my bs. I would never call out my parents when I was a child. All the memes about Gen X - they’re true. We did not have child seats in cars. We jumped in the back of pickup trucks and held on. Our parents drove with us and they had had a few drinks.

Our lives are based on relationship building. Not all relationships work. Just look at the divorce rates or the epidemic of narcissistic personalities. I truly believe that even more than Emotional Intelligence one needs Relational Intelligece. One needs to be able to read the room.

It is inevitable that in your work life you will come across various personalities and some will irritate your spirit. It will lead to failure because you’re dealing with a human being who may have had to deal with traffic and meets you on their way into the office. They are recovering from road rage and you’re bent on asking them something legitimately. It’s a recipe for disaster as a frustrated supervisor meets a chirpy supervisee asking a legitimate question but just wrong timing.

Other failure is just an act of God. Covid! Need I say more. How many dreams were deferred because the world came to an abrupt halt. How many startups and successful businesses folded?

Failure is the failsafe that if you choose to treat it as such, will spur your growth. Even when your intentions are well meaning they may be misconstrued because life is about human relationships. It’s important to understand that failing often keeps one creative and innovative. It creates a whole industry of motivational speakers. Why would we need motivational speakers if everyone was winning? Why do we root for the underdog? Why are we intrigued by stories of huge catastrophes? It’s hard wired into our being. The United Nations was the result of a catastrophic global human failure. The Universal Declaration of human rights was an acknowledgment that humanity had failed itself.

This is why we can look at the current situation, the rise of extremism, and we’re saying we’re heading for failure again. We are being forced to self introspect. As horrible as the global situation is right now because it’s driven by hubris, the catastrophic failure that we’re heading towards will result in something more resilient and robust. As human beings we are hard wired to fail because we default to our prehistoric biological wiring. We are hard wired for ‘survival of the fittest’. We have had to learn that change can only come through community and collective efforts.

When we default to our instinctive desire for self preservation we fail. Our creator ensured that unlike Icarus we would not fly too close to the sun and self destruct. Failure makes us question the very nature of our existence. Failure makes us push ourselves to do better. Failure is the key to growth. Failure brings discomfort that forces one to change. Comfort breeds complacency.

A growth mindset is predicated on failure. A growth mindset is about doing things differently in order to avert failure. That’s why my favourite definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The greatest inventions were as a result of spectacular failures. I leave you with this wonderful article by Forbes of 8 inventions that came out of failure https://www.forbes.com/.../8-successful-products-that.../.

Ndini Mambokadzi Wadzanai