Encouraging failure as a part of growth at workplace

Failure is a part of life just like success. Be it our professional or our personal lives, we all suffer momentary setbacks and defeats.

We have this culture where success is admired and appreciated and on the opposite failure is criticized and makes the person feel ashamed about it. Of course, there are good reasons why we prefer not to recognize failure: it can hurt us emotionally, embarrass us socially and threaten our self-image. But we need to understand that failures will also be there if there is success. Our life is long. We will have both ups and downs, instances of happiness and sadness, instances of success and instances where we make mistakes or experience failures.

Often, it’s not just the act of failing that people are afraid of, it is actually the consequences. The fear of being blamed for mistakes can be overwhelming for some and cause intense feelings of embarrassment and anxiety. The more responsibility you have, the worse the fear of failure can become.?Learning to deal with these feelings and face them head-on is the first step toward a healthy relationship with failure.

Encouraging failure at workplace

Even if we acknowledge that failure is necessary for growth, the tricky part is bringing it into a business setting, where the entire objective is the success of the organization.

According to a report published in?Scientific American, your brain begins compiling information about the experience and it actually gets bigger throughout the learning scenario. And, while the brain returns to close to its original size after the learning experience, it retains new neural pathways by taking in new information, compiling the key takeaways from trial and error. Making mistakes matures the brain, resulting in more efficient synapses and fundamentally altered neurons. In short, failure can actually make you?smarter.

Ways to encourage failure at your workplace

It is not possible to create a culture that encourages failure if it doesn’t start from the top. So, if you wish to create a culture where people do not have the fear of failure and can take risk, this mindset needs to be shift from top management to the bottom levels.

1.????Lead with example

This cultural shift of de-stigmatizing failure needs to start from the top. When encouraging employees to take chances, leaders should consider sharing their own mistakes or learning experiences.

Leadership is about figuring out what went wrong and learning from it, not shying away from what is inevitable. It gives employees the confidence to try new things and not feel bad about it if it doesn't work out one time.

2.????Respond supportively

When the inevitable occurs and mistakes are made, managers should be mindful of their immediate responses and avoid responding with anger or frustration. Instead, address the situation calmly, and work closely with employees to find solutions, acknowledging their role in the situation but supporting them throughout the resolution process.

After any immediate issues are handled, supervisors should schedule one-on-one meetings with the employees to discuss how to avoid similar problems in the future. This approach may encourage employees to pause and reflect on key takeaways, setting them up for success moving forward.

3.????Reward employees when they catch mistakes

One way to reinforce the importance of learning from mistakes is to make it part of your company culture. Consider recognizing employees for surfacing things that have gone wrong or errors that are identified and resolved.?Celebrate failures in the team meeting or socials. Make your team members share a recent failure and then cheer.

4.????Focus on the learning

While we are talking about encouraging failures here but it should not be a way out of making errors and get away with it, we should always learn from our failures and try not to repeat those gaps again. The main focus should be the learning. Listen with empathy, without judgment, to those who share their failures.?

5.????Communicate the purpose properly

When you communicate your “Why” properly. When you openly discuss the purpose of the project with your team members, the fear of failure gets replaced with the fear of not fulfilling the “Why”.

Expecting that your employees will never fail can be demoralizing to the entire workforce and bad for the company culture as well. According to the American Psychological Association, work is the?third most common source of stress?with 61% of respondents reporting feeling stressed due to work. Even worse, employees who feel anxious and over-stressed are also less likely to be creative or willing to contribute to the company’s success.

There is this quote I heard in a recent Podcast, and it just got stuck with me “At the end of the day, you don’t want someone to say: ‘Well, I got that wrong, too bad.’ You want someone to say ‘I got that wrong, but I think I could get it right if I try again.?“

No matter hard we try we can never guarantee a 100 % success, there will be always a probability of failing. All we can do is to be honest and focused about our job and when you fail, you end up making a mistake, learn from that experience, understand what went wrong and get smarter.?