Embracing Failure: The Path to Team Resilience

Over the last week, I’ve read many comments on failure acceptance.? This higher-than-normal trend of failure comments likely comes from the difficulties we see in our industry and overall in the economy right now.? Let’s face it.? It’s tough times.

When I wrote my notes on what I wanted to cover in this article I wrote the bullet points:

• ·???????? Team
• ·???????? Culture
• ·???????? Failure
• ·???????? Respect & Support
• ·???????? Creating Wins

For many years, I’ve considered myself a failure acceptor.? What does that mean?? I’m someone who takes failure for whatever it is and learns from it.? I have trained myself to approach a scenario slightly different than what I used to.? Instead of looking at something along the lines of the disaster that was made, I look at the opportunities this failure presents.? This does not mean I am passive, or I avoid conflict.? It means I first look at opportunity in failures.? Overall, I am human, and I still get frustrated with failure as well.

Everyone and every organization has had some form of failure.?? The true ideology is how you recover from it.? How do you treat others outside of your team, family, and immediate circle in their failures?? How do you treat or consider your competitor in their failures?? One of GLCS' core values is integrity.? Integrity is defined as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.”? This is hard for a person to achieve all the time, and it’s even harder for a broader organization to achieve all the time.? I know I want to be a man of integrity, but, sometimes I may fail, and I learn from that.? In my earlier years, I may have taken delight in someone’s struggles, especially a competitor.? I simply can’t do that anymore.? In reflection, I am disappointed with myself that I used to be that person.

I recently participated in a poll from Trey Griggs asking how I characterize my organization.? There were 145 votes, and it was overwhelmingly decided that most characterize their organizations as a team.? I consider GLCS, Inc. a team, although I certainly consider some of my team family members as I’ve worked with many of them for over 10 years and some over 20.? As a holistic organization, we are a team.?

A team is defined as: “A group of people with different skills and different tasks, who work together on a common project, service or goal with a meshing of functions and mutual support.”? When I googled “What makes a team a team?” I received an interesting response.?

“Teams depend on the personalities of the members, as well as the leadership style of managers. However, the ingredients for what makes a successful team are similar across the board. Having mutual respect, common and aligned goals, open communication, and patience can all help make for a successful team.”

Team culture is built when people support each other, share their knowledge, and genuinely work together for a common goal.? Leadership plays into this a lot.? I know that my integrity and knowledge have a role in our company culture, and I hope my humor is a bit of pixie dust to it as well.? Hiring the right people, equipping them, and empowering them to do their jobs.? Giving them the information that they need to do what they need to do are key fundamentals here.? Doing this creates a culture of respect and mutual support amongst the team.? When one person is failing or has failed, others rush to their aid and prop them up.

You can’t force culture.? While a workplace with amazing teams is critical to a successful business, if culture is forced it turns from being a welcoming organization to being very uncomfortable.? Company culture doesn’t belong to company leadership.? The team is the company's lifeblood, and leadership is there to grow and guide them.? Understanding and respecting the team and values of the company drive your culture forward.? However, culture is ultimately adopted by the team as a whole.

Making hard decisions influences your culture as well.? As much as it is difficult for an organization to have these times exist if you don’t manage through them, it is possible that the organization itself will not exist or the issues that are being created are not being addressed in a timely manner and this overall will hurt culture.? Hard decisions may include letting people go for performance or financial reasons or reducing your product offerings due to the cost of support.? I know of no one who likes making these types of hard decisions.? It’s the least favorite part of operating a company.? In many cases, it can be one of the most important.? These hard decisions can often be tied to failures, and by not making the correct hard decision, it could be your last failure.? We’ve seen larger organizations recently that have gone through large layoffs.? The leadership at those organizations have received some negative press and negative social media commentary.? It’s easy to arm chair quarterback from a certain point of view with out actually being in the operating chair.

I firmly believed that teams live, breathe, and grow together.? A true team exists beyond the boundaries of the company.? Take a moment and read my “About” on my LinkedIn profile https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/nate-johnson-95896a1b/.? I’m guessing most of you don’t read these when you connect to people.? This has been my description for some time.?

It is my opinion that failure is our greatest teacher.? Try not to fail too hard.? Use your team to support a softer failure and more frequent and bigger wins.? Invest in people to your greatest capability.? Make them better than you.? Don’t fear their departure.? If the team transcends the company, then something will work to the benefit of all in the long run, even if it’s just your pride that you helped this person achieve something better.

Nate Johnson, Founder & CEO GLCS, Inc.