Failing Forward

The Undeniable Level Up

And we are back with another episode of Level Up. Last week we discussed "Defining Success". We covered where we get our definition of success and how we personally define success? We also covered what we can do to be successful?

Today we are going to discuss failing forward. This is a big topic and not easy to cover. No one likes to admit when they have failed. Through discussion, we will be covering how to learn from failure, how to focus on the solution and not point the finger, how to encourage innovation and creativity by embracing failure, avoiding failure by learning from the failure of others and finally, the consequences of ignoring failure.

Quote: "Fear of failure is often the toughest hurdle to jump in leadership" -John Maxwell from the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast.

Q: What are your thoughts?

There are many ways to learn from failure. In the military we used the After Action Review, or the AAR. It's a methodical process that allows participants of an exercise or a mission to give three ups and three downs and then a list of recommendations to ensure next quarter's exercise or the next mission goes better. In business, there's the post-mortem, or some other type of formal review process that allows the business to assess what went well, what didn't go so well, and what we need to change in the future in order to improve.

Seems like a great way to learn from our failures right? Well, not when we get stuck in the blame game. Our default behavior is to assign an effect to a cause. Psychologically, we can't help but point the finger. Whether it's to explain what or why something happened, to attack someone, to defend ourselves from others, whether they are pointing the finger at us, or whether we are having difficulty assuming responsibility for our mistake or failure. It is always easier to assign blame for a failure. Way easier than actually diving into the problem and resolving the root cause of the failure. It is almost instinctual to assign blame to failure.

Q: Have you ever blames someone else for a failure that you experienced? What has been one your biggest personal failures in business or in your personal life? Did you blame someone for that failure? Have you ever been blamed for a major failure? Was it your fault, how did you react?

Failure is the "School of Hard Knocks". Who would we be without the life lessons taught through our failure. It's how we learned to walk, to ride bikes, to dance, to build and to succeed. Failing allows us to build upon our character and feed our values of honesty, integrity and honor. Failure is our greatest and oldest teacher.

Failure gives birth to courage and shows us the power of perseverance. It encourages creativity and risk taking and highlights an individuals enthusiasm and motivation. Failure encourages exploration and instills resilience. Accept failure and look at failure as a step in the staircase to success. Welcome failure, as it is often necessary to learn what is required to be successful

Q: What is the toughest lesson you have learned through failing? What has failure taught you? Have you always seen failure from the perspective of learning and growth? How do learn from your failures in business? How do you teach your junior leaders and subordinates not to fear failure?

Quote: "The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate" -IBM's Thomas Watson Sr.

Not all failures are created equal. The Harvard Business Review provides a spectrum with "lethal failures" on the far left being those that are based on violating a prescribed process, law or rule. This is the extreme side of failure and is not just blameworthy, but will result in serious repercussions such as fines and potential jailtime. This is followed closely with inattention to details and overestimating your own ability to do a job. On the far right, and opposite lethal failure you have hypothesis testing and exploratory testing, which simply put is trail and error and typically involve little to no risk.

The middle of the spectrum includes task challenge, process complexity and uncertainty. These are areas where you can encourage risk taking with the right level of engagement and management.

The goal when encouraging failure is to establish an understanding of a lethal failure versus an excusable failure and then encouraging those excusable failures. Failures that have limited impact on the business or your personal life.

Q: Have you ever experienced or known someone who has experienced a lethal failure? How have you encouraged your employees, your team mates or business partners to take risks and exposure of excusable failure? How do you develop this in your team?

Often times, it is possible to learn from the mistakes and failings of others, therefore avoiding making the same or similar mistake ourselves. We can learn from our parents, our friends, business partners, entrepreneurs and people we look up too. If someone has done something similar to what you are planning, it would be foolish not to use their blue print and avoid repeating their errors.

Q: What lessons have you learn from others that prevented you from making the same mistake? How do you use other people's lessons to improve your chances of success?

When we ignore our failures, we find ourselves doomed to repeat our mistakes. Repeating a mistake is a pattern that turns into habit and creates a failure loop.

Q: Have you ever found yourself in a failure loop? How did you escape the loop? What forced you to change? What did you learn from the process?

Although there are a number of lessons to be learned from failure, there are always lessons learned in succeeding and in achieving success as well. I actually prefer those types of lessons. We should all be trying to learn from the mistakes of others and using effective planning and preparation to avoid failure and the tough lessons that come through failing.

If you're ready to level up and maximize learning and growth through failure, then I encourage you to purchase the book, "Failing Forward" by Dr. John Maxwell. For about $14.00 you can learn how turn mistakes and failures in advantages and learning opportunities.

Additionally, if you are looking for resources for your operations or business to improve on how your organization is conducting after action reviews and post mortems, then I have provided a link to a resource guide from Vanderbilt University that provides a simple but effective method for rapid post-project or post operations assessment so that you can begin learning from your mistakes and failures.

Try to learn your lessons from your success.

As we wrap it up, the bottom line is that success can be measured in more than one or two ways. Money, fame and titles aren't true measurement of success unless they are goals that you've established and achieved. True success comes from identifying ...