“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
The fastest way to succeed is to fail, a lot! This is when we learn the most and grow the most. If entrepreneurs want to navigate the changes coming from the onset of automation and the fall out of a post-pandemic economy, they need to develop a growth mindset and find a safe place to make mistakes and fail.
A culture of perfectionism drives mistake avoidance
Most businesspeople accept that failure is a prerequisite to innovation and that a breakthrough isn’t possible if they are not willing to take risks and when things go wrong learn from mistakes. Unfortunately, though, there is often an assumption there will be a loss of esteem, credibility, and stature, which could be seen as, embarrassing at best or damaging to our business at worst. But what if we were able to see all of our failures as a step closer to success?
This is where the power of NOT YET comes in because then it’s not really a failure it is a learning process, e.g. “I don’t understand digital marketing – well not yet” “I can’t seem to develop enough new business – well not yet” or “My email marketing campaign isn’t working – well not yet”
Fail fast, learn fast, adjust and grow
This is not just about business leaders and solo entrepreneurs it’s also about encouraging our staff in the same way. In the experiential training, we deliver we have the mantra “fail fast, learn fast, adjust and grow. To do this it’s essential to create a safe space that invites people to experiment — it feels safe to try new things.
In my experience of working in L and D for 26 years, there are two key areas that need focus if we want to encourage our employees to fail fast.
- Vulnerability – Instead of pushing our people to be human robots where they will ultimately keep doing the same things in the same way, we need to encourage them to embrace and acknowledge their humanness, which includes emotions and flaws. You would think this would come naturally but, from a very early age, we are taught to look confident, be assertive, and in control. Being vulnerable will need to be relearnt and practiced by everyone leaders, teams, and individuals
- Creativity – Is constantly being sighted as one of the most important skills for the 21st century yet the processes that we put in place stifle creativity through the fear of failure. Dealing with such uncertain times requires adapting to an ever-changing dynamic reality, this will need innovation and risk-taking.
Harnessing the power of not yet for you and your people
Below are some realistic and practical ideas to create a safe space for your employees and you to embrace the power of “NOT YET”
- Give prizes for the mistakes that have led to a breakthrough or improvement if you have a team or practice talking about them in a positive way to others if not.
- Recognize and thank people for going for it and failing fast.
- Practice appreciative enquiry – lead with questions about what has worked and what might be, this could even be used as a personal reflection for yourself, so you turn every one of your failures into a learning opportunity.
- Reward and appreciate the effort as much, if not more than success
- Encourage the sharing of ideas and work early, one of the biggest reasons why failure should be encouraged is because it catches potential challenges quicker.
- Communication is key – encourage openness, meaningful feedforward, and real human vulnerability, and put yourself out there by asking for feedback.
- Lead from the front and own up to your own failures and be willing to show your own vulnerability
As small children we learnt from playing, the young brain adapting and growing through trial and error. Getting on the bike and falling off again and again until the big moment of peddling down the road with shouts of encouragement from our parents.
Somewhere along the line we may have forgotten it is ok to fail and maybe as leaders or businesspeople we forgot to fall of the bike, pick ourselves up and have another go. The best way for us to develop a growth mindset is to normalise failure and discover the value of it. By accepting that it’s normal to fail or make mistakes, you will then learn that it is not an ending. Rather, it is the beginning. One of the wisest sayings I ever heard and I use this whenever things are not going the way I want them to is “Its neither good or bad because you don’t know the end of the story yet” absolutely brilliant!
Debra Stevens is a trainer, speaker, and the author of Stand Out: 5 key skills to advance your career, published by Pearson, priced £14.99
