How do you recover from failure? Five steps to recover from failure.

In my last two articles I talked about about fear of failure. In this article, my focus is on actually failing. Yes, that's when the worst happens and you fail. Ouch, we don't like that word!

I've failed at times in my life and career. What's my worst failure? Definitely a hiring failure. It's one of the worst mistakes to make, particularly when you are recruiting people who are uprooting their families across borders. I still reflect on it occasionally. The important thing is that I've learned from those failures and been able to recover.

Here's my five point plan to recover from failure:

1) Take ownership of the failure

Hard as it is, ownership has to happen for the recovery process to begin. If you're emotional and shooting around for someone or something to blame, you're not in the right place yet. Accepting failure is hard, it will hurt. If it doesn’t sting a bit then you haven’t taken ownership. In my recruitment example above, while it was a team of us who had carried out the interviews, it was my decision as hiring manager to bring the person on board. I worked closely with HR and the individual on a coaching plan to try to make it a success for a period of time but it still didn’t work so I had to take ownership and correct the situation.

2) Ask someone you trust to assess the situation from their perspective

We're egocentric beings so it's tempting to put ourselves at the centre of every story. Sometimes we're not the story and we've lost perspective. Having someone else's perspective can help us to reframe the situation. If you find yourself falling into destructive, catastrophic thinking then it’s a good sign that you need to ask someone else to shine a light on the situation. 

In my example, I talked the situation through with my boss, the CEO, he was very pragmatic about it and helped me realise that although it would be tough for the person initially, they would flourish elsewhere.

3) Forgive yourself

We all make mistakes, often there are painful consequences but at some point we have to forgive ourselves for messing up. Forgiveness is an important part of moving on. Often it is shame or guilt that is replaying in our heads and preventing forgiveness. Guilt is a more positive emotion than shame as it is usually easier to identify what went wrong, ask for forgiveness and move on. Shame makes you feel like you are in the eye of the storm and it’s hard to find a way out. Shame is personal and humiliating and the last thing you want to do is bring it out into the open. Sometimes it’s a matter of patience, waiting it out, but sometimes you just have to be courageous, face up to your fear and recognise your shame. Then you can forgive yourself.

I have to admit to sleepless nights over the example I gave above. Partly empathy for the individual, partly guilt and partly shame. I saw myself as the one driving the people agenda but I’d messed up. Fortunately the perspective from my boss helped me to forgive myself and move on.

4) Assess what you could do differently, focusing on factors you can control

There are multiple different tools you can use here but I recommend a simple format: identify what went well, what didn’t go so well, and actions to improve in the future. The actions to improve are the important part. Hone in on actions that you can control. Think about Stephen Covey’s Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. People who recover effectively from failure focus on the things they can influence and let go of the things that they can’t have control over. If you organised an event and the weather was terrible, you couldn’t have changed that, however, you could have ensured that there was appropriate shelter or a plan B in case of bad weather.

In my failure situation, I quickly identified some things I could do differently, such as creating a way to test people on technical skills via video conference, working with HR to better screen on individual motivation to move cross-border and ensuring I had the right people involved in the interview process.

5) Brush yourself off and get back out there 

Once you’ve had a chance to wallow, reflect and learn, it’s time for action. Tackle that action plan straight away, it doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to work on everything, just choose one or two things to get you going. If you find yourself failing to start because you haven’t got things quite right, it’s a big red flag that you’re afraid of making a mistake. Acknowledge that fear, accept that you will fail, everyone does. Then choose one small thing that will take you less than 10 minutes to get you going. Take a deep breath and dive right in.

With recruitment, I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing, I had to bring in more talent. I implemented my action plan and since then, I’m glad to say I have had an excellent record of hiring great talent. 

Remember that experiencing failure and being a failure are not the same thing. Just because you have had one set-back or many does not mean that you will keep on failing. Everyone fails, it’s the people who learn from those failures that flourish.

And in case you were wondering about the subject of my failed recruitment decision. They moved on, were much happier elsewhere and found their own path to success. 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill

All views are my own.