Developing Culture: It’s Okay to Fail (within reason)

As humans, we do everything we can to avoid failure, but to grow and be successful we NEED failure.

• Mistakes are accidents.

• Errors happen due to lack of knowledge.

• Sometimes people are wrong, they state something that’s incorrect or untrue.

Accidents happen, errors can be solved through teaching, and being “wrong” can be solved with a bit of humility and patience. If it’s solved that easily, then who cares about mistakes?

A lot of people care. I’ve made mistakes (a few big-ish ones, lots of small ones) and there is no worse feeling, especially for a high achiever or someone with high accountability. Some people train themselves to roll with the punches, and failure hurts less, but that takes a lot of experience and strong leadership.

Why you should care:

There are dozens of leadership trend lists and “people” focused topics for 2023, many of which are centered around flexibility, agility, and investing in employee well-being. You know what contributes to all of those things? Creating a supportive environment where it’s okay to try and fail. You learn a lot about a leader when you have to call them and say “I made a mistake”. As a leader, this is a golden opportunity. How someone approaches sharing a mistake (or hiding it), how they prepare to share the information, what information they’ve already gathered, and how they respond to your reaction all while under pressure can teach you a lot about them. More importantly, it’s an opportunity to reframe and rewire on both ends and build trust.

I learned more from how people around me responded to my mistakes than I did from the actual errors and processes that led me there. Of course, I addressed my technical failures, but I learned a lot about how to lead someone through a tough time such as a failure or mistake and that was invaluable as a leader.

DON’T:

1) Try to find the person at fault. Fight all urges to revert to a scarcity mindset, and remember that the root cause of your problem is a THING that can be solved, not a person (in MOST cases)

2) Assign blame. Unless, you as a leader want to assign it to yourself. This can take pressure off of the person struggling, and remember, you are ultimately responsible.

3) Make the person find the solution on their own. There will be plenty of opportunities to let someone figure things out without giving them the answer, in times of stress, don’t play games or push too hard.

DO Short-term:

1. Help triage, maintain the calm, and find a solution. If we’re talking fight or flight, this is not the time to abandon ship.

DO Long-term:

1. Build a culture of shared accountability. This will encourage peers to work collaboratively and diminishes the opportunity for careless mistakes. This includes YOU as their leader.

2. Get comfortable with FAAO (failure as an option). If you fail-learn from it. Having the option to fail encourages the effort to try.

3. Encourage Transparency. Share failures without shame, be proud to share what you learned so others don’t have to struggle like you did. This helps to avoid costly mistakes and improves the possibility that you’ll find a truly innovate solution.

You learn a lot about yourself when given the opportunity to experiment and grow, test and learn… give others the flexibility and confidence to know you will have their back when they need it most.

Remember, the worst drivers on the road are scared drivers.