Our company has had great growth over the past few years and while it would be nice to say it has all gone smoothly there have been a lot of mistakes ranging from the forgettable to monumental blunders. We've re-organised as best we could with the little knowledge we have, made adjustments to plans on the fly and despite trying to stay ahead of the game it has often been the case that we have "flown by the seat of our pants."
My wife recently reminded me of a Woody Allen quote:
"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."
Surely that means I'm being extremely innovative!
Mistakes have consequences but they are not all bad. On the good side we have learnt some valuable lessons where we have been willing to learn them.
Recently I've been working on our company values and principles and one of the ideas I want to encapsulate is failure:
1. People are expected to fail every now and again;
I want people in our organisation who are willing to step out and try new things. Therefore I also need to expect they will fail sometimes. Standing still in the place you know is safe but it doesn't get you anywhere.
2. People have the freedom to fail;
Within an organisation (company, family, sports team ...) the mistakes we make will affect others. We need to accept that we will suffer the consequences (good and bad) of the actions of others, help them to learn, learn from them, and move on together. Like it or not, our lives are connected to other people.
3. People should learn from their failures;
If people are continually experiencing the same failures then it's a very good sign they are not learning and adjusting. You can't expect to continue to do the same thing and get different results.
Finally our outlook on failures is very important. Thomas Edison's famous quote about his journey to make a working light bulb sums it up:
"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work."
