Learning from failure
We know so little and need so much. I can’t remember a time of greater uncertainty. The rules of the game have changed, but the ref is still in the dressing room and the rule book hasn’t been written!
This means there are opportunities and risks in how we conduct our businesses. Whether we make the most of the opportunities and manage the risks comes down to our ability to learn fast. And when I say “our”, I don’t mean as individuals, I mean as organisations.
That means we have to create a learning mindset because we’re going to make a lot of mistakes. People have to be able to fail safely, knowing that the focus will be on what can be learned rather than who’s to blame.
We lost a big opportunity a month or so back. We were devastated, but we took away two reasons why we failed and two more why we were very nearly successful. Our failures were a lesson in market responsiveness – we had a fixed product that had worked really well, but the prospect wanted (we finally worked out) greater flexibility. We realised that we could create equally powerful results if we customized and tailored our offering by doing customer-led product development. We were also too slow to face the reality of price pressure in a post COVID-19 economic climate.
We took those lessons and communicated our revised offering to a select group of prospects which revived a relationship that has led to a significant success. We would not have won that new client if we hadn’t failed, and more importantly, adapted our approach based on what we learned.
As managers, how do we create and cultivate a learning mindset in our teams? Here are some simple practices (extracted from our Active Manager Programme). Repeat, repeat, repeat until learning becomes like breathing.
Always start learning conversations with “These are skills that can be learned”. This is how you create a growth mindset in which learning will almost certainly happen
Let people know that learning is going to be a struggle because it’s a form of “mental doing” which requires effort. And keep encouraging them with the “skills that can be learned” phrase, because they also need to believe they can learn the new skill
Get comfortable with making mistakes and ensure your people are too. Failure is an event, not a person. Welcome mistakes, but have no tolerance for failing to learn from them
Get comfortable talking to people about how they performed rather than what they achieved or technical problems that arose. Paying attention to performance always makes us better – which is why you should pay attention to how you are enabling learners
Here’s a great practice I got from my wife, an outstanding leader and manager. After every meeting and every project, she would ask her associate, “How do you think that went? What would you do differently next time?”. In this way, she cultivated an environment of learning, as well as what we would call an active mindset which addresses the great question: “What really happened here?”