From a very early age, the message of failure is driven into our subconscious: failure is bad; failure means you didn’t do enough preparation; failure means you didn’t study hard enough; failure means you are lazy or – worse – weren’t smart enough to begin with. All of this teaches us that, more than anything, failure is something to be ashamed of and hidden from public view.
Those early experiences of shame are too deep to simply erase. As such, people continue to resist and reject failure because, regardless of what anyone says, mistakes feel embarrassing.
It’s easy to say that failure is an opportunity for growth and speakers from every walk of life have sermonized on this for decades. While this is a very accurate perspective, the majority of people interpret that statement to mean that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes and failures aren’t a necessary evil. In fact, they aren’t evil at all.
It’s not about accepting failure with dignity and simply marching forward. The better, and much more accurate interpretation, is that failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. People who don’t experience failure are making a far worse mistake: They are being driven by the desire to avoid it.
Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of doing something new. As such, they should be seen a valuable asset, for without them originality would cease to exist. However, acknowledging this truth is not enough because failure is deeply painful. Our own personal feelings about the embarrassment that is tied to mistakes tend to undermine the understanding of their worth.
Compare failure to riding a bike: it’s simply not possible to learn this without falling over a few times and, quite possibly, getting hurt. The key learning to ride is to get a bike that is as low to the ground as can be found, strap on a helmet (along with elbow and knee pads) so the fear of falling and pain is eliminated, and just go. When this mindset is applied to everything new that is encountered – in business and in life – the negative connotation associated with making mistakes and failure is undermined.
How do you know if an organization has embraced an adverse view of failure? Ask yourself what happens when a mistake is discovered. Do people shut down and turn inward, or do they come together to unravel the cause(s) of the issue that might prevent failure going forward? In other words, are people asking “Whose fault is this?” If so, the culture is one that assails failure which will stagnate innovation and growth. Even worse, many times the initial failure is magnified by the spoken or unspoken search for a scapegoat which will have team members pointing fingers at each other.
In this type of culture – where failure is something to be avoided at just about all costs – people will either consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. Instead, they will seek to repeat something safe that’s been “good enough” in the past and their work will be derivative and stale. However, if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen.
The solution is as difficult as it is simple: from the top down, people must openly share mistakes and their part in creating them. Being open about problems is the first key step in learning from them. While fear will always be part of the equation, this approach will loosen the grip fear has on people within the organization. None of us wants too many failures, but we must shift our thinking and realize that the cost of failure is really an investment in the future.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, immediate past president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), vice president of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, and developing branding that resonates with a target audience. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.