Failure: An Opportunity to Learn?

This is an especially exciting topic for this week`s post as it is something that affects and impacts all of us! We are talking about mistakes – because we all do them (whether we like to admit it or not). And isn’t the real grace and humility of mistakes lie in how we react to and learn from those moments we`d rather forget? How many companies have you worked in where you regularly heard that they wanted you to be brave and empowered but at the same time imposed strict cost saving measures where you were terrified of overspending or ridiculous layers of approvals that prevented you from taking any big leap? We have all been there people. Many companies have wrestled with how to make failures okay and rather pathways to innovation and learning but very few actually achieve it. Some golden examples of success like the Google X team show a company living the dream where they invest in mistakes because they are seen as the highway to new ideas. But for those of us not on the Google X team, how do you deal with mistakes and failures and turn them into something positive? Or what if you cant find anything positive – can do you bounce back? Because everyone makes mistakes – the two of us included but the magic lies in how you respond and what you take from it that matters.

 Dear Kates

I’ve really enjoyed this series of articles so far – but if you don’t mind me being honest, you make it seem like you have all the answers. Is this true? And If not, what mistakes have you made along the way and how have you learnt from it?

Thanks!

Straight-Talker from Stavanger

Hi Straight-Talker Stavanger,

Thanks for getting right to the point – we love directness! The short answer – yes, we have both made a ton of mistakes along the way – and to be honest, we continue to make them on a fairly regular basis. By why not reveal our warts and all and share with you some of our experiences along the way, what we learnt and how we applied that learning into future experiences and situations.

British Kate`s Perspective on Failure:

There was that time early on in my graduate programme where I had just written a scathing email about how useless my career coach was and how he couldn’t possibly help me….and after pressing reply, I realized I had sent the response to him. Oh the horror! There was the time during a leadership meeting where I got asked a fairly simple question….and blurted out something which was so incredibly incorrect that I just wanted the floor to open up beneath me and swallow me whole. I could honestly name something that has gone wrong on most days of the week, but although a cliché, it is often those things that you learn the most from.

One of my earliest leadership experiences actually ended up teaching me the most. As a newly minted call centre manager, I had to deal with a difficult personnel issue during my first couple of weeks. I gathered a few facts – someone had been repeatedly parking in the incorrect space – and armed only with my confidence, I marched into the meeting with this employee, told them the rules and took their carparking rights off them right then and there. There were tears, there were strong words, there was disbelief…and 24 hours later, I was reversing the decision and a little (a LOT) bit embarrassed by the whole thing. Turns out there was a whole backstory and reason behind the situation but I hadn’t spent the time to understand the context or bothered to ask my employee anything before making a decision. I was lucky – I both had a manager who gave me support and space to make these mistakes, and employees who were willing to tolerate my energetic if slightly unhelpful management interventions. It taught me a huge amount though – such as to always go in assuming the best of the other person as it usually leads to a better outcome all around.

These mistakes still continue to this day – and often my manager’s responses to these mistakes have made me realise what true leadership is. When I came to my most recent manager to explain how everything seemed to have fallen apart just before our management presentation and her response was to have my back and help me sort it, I knew this immediately that this was the type of leader I want to be. Someone who trusts you, knows when to come in support you and when to give you space.  In the future, that’s the sort of leader I want to be known as – creating a team where it’s ok to make mistakes when you are trying something new as long as you learn from them and continue developing.

Canadian Kate`s Perspective on Failure:

Growing up with a mother who was also a family and child therapist/psychologist, early on I was forced to recognize my mistakes and take responsibility for them via reflection. Instead of grounding me or taking away certain rights, my mother instead asked me to write 500 words about what I did, why it was wrong, the impact it had on others and how I would learn from it. I wasn’t allowed to do other things until those 500 words were written, read and discussed. I genuinely think this creative approach to mistakes has enabled me to take responsibility and be quite open about my failures or mistakes. Of course I am not perfect and can definitely lose sleep over anxiety related to work or things that didn’t go according to plan – I`m a real girl and not a droid!

A couple years ago, I was invited to an event in Stockholm to publicly discuss my “Greatest F&C% Up of my Career” to a room full of strangers and I did it willingly and happily. If I could share my story and experiences to others and prevent them from making the same mistakes, why not do it? So what example did I share with this room of people? It was a large IT system implementation project that I took on in my previous position and it was a stretch assignment for me which means I had experience but hadn’t lead this kind of project before so it would definitely stretch me. But I love a challenge and went for it. As time went on, many unexpected things popped up that impacted the timeline, the delivery and the budget. Some were no one`s fault but others were likely the result of a lack of experience. Instead of facing this issue head on, I stuck my head in the sand and worried quietly about the rising costs and extended deadlines. This is course did not help the situation. Eventually I had to face the music and reveal the true extent of the situation to my leader at the time. I remember him staying calm, not yelling but saying the dreaded, “I`m disappointed.” Ugghh the pit in your stomach when you hear that. However what came out of the dreaded phase 1 of the project is that I took all the lessons learned and applied them into a successful phase 2. I sought out experts to support me in the areas I was not as strong on and implemented much more structure and governance into the entire project. The result was that we did not repeat the mistakes of the past and delivered on time and on budget. So that is what is important to remember here – mistakes happen, we mess up but it is how we own up to them (please take responsibility and don’t try to deflect it on others!) and apply them into future scenarios so they don’t happen again and we do even better the next time.

My lessons and advice in summary:

1)      Take ownership for your errors or mistakes. You want to be empowered – well then put your big kid pants on and be there for the good and the bad. As a leader the buck stops with you so this is especially important to do. A real leader is responsible for a team`s successes and failures.

2)      Don’t hide. It can be tempting to dig a hole and hide in it when you mess up but that will only make things worse. As scary as it can be, face that mistake head on and deal with it. Time will only fester the boil as we say.

3)      Be a role model. If you want your employees to see failure as a pathways to development, learning and new ideas then be the catalyst for that change. If you create a culture of fear or treat mistakes as crimes, employees will not feel like they have the freedom to fly in the team or organization.