A Culture of Failure?

One of things that never fails to amuse me is managers who look at managing as an exercise in training employees to "do the things right" versus "doing the right things."

What is amusing to me is that the "doing things right" isn't a static function.  However, doing the "right things" almost always is constant.  Processes and procedures change (and today they change at an increasing rate) - mission/values/goals - not so much.

Doing "the things right" assumes that the "thing" never changes.  Fill out a form this way.  Use this formula to calculate ROI.  Always use this order for slides in your presentation.  I'm sure you could quote your own managers on what the "things right" conversation would look like.  

Failure as a Strategy

When focusing on the "things" to do right you miss a lot of opportunities to grow and advance.  As a manager you need to use failure as a way to change the "things" without changing what's right.  You need to allow failure to encourage growth.

To paraphrase Woody Hayes - infamous head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes who said that there were only three things that come from passing the ball and two of them are bad (interception, incomplete & complete for those who think soccer is football.) 

When you allow employees to fail there are three outcomes and two of them are good:

• negative repercussions on the business
• a teachable moment that is better ingrained in the employee leading to greater retention and understanding
• a new way to do something that has a benefit to the organization

Research Shows...

Failure - or to put a finer point on it - managing errors and failures is a key element of success in today's fast-paced business environment.  From a recent post on Dr. Robert Cialdini's blog on influence...

"If, instead of being an error hunter, you position yourself to become an error opportunist, who looks to cash in on any unintended stumble by learning from it, you and your organization could profit handsomely in the long run. For instance, at recent meetings of the Association for Psychological Science, Professor Frese cited statistics showing that, compared to companies with a weak error management culture, those with a strong error management culture were 400% more likely to be among the most profitable companies in their industry."

What this means to me is that companies need to create a culture of failure - not that failure is what you want but that failure is something you don't punish.  Failure and the associated learnings is a good thing!

Celebrate and Reward Failure

I've posted before on this but I think as we move into 2010 and the season for resolutions ask yourself - "In 2010 will I focus more on letting people on my team experiment with doing the right things and spend less time worrying if they are doing things right?"

How will you reward failure and recovery?  How will you reinforce the fact that failures resulting from trying to do the right thing are acceptable and encouraged?  

Let me know if I'm wrong - I promise to learn from it and be better the next time.

Comments

[Scott Crandall]

Paul --- I think this goes back to a recent (well, somewhat recent -- at least I remember it!) post about the importance of "Why". Explaining "why" we do things is always more important than "how", "when" or the rest.

Explaining "why" so people really get it is all about profiting from errors, and growing through mistakes. Plus, if people truly understand & appreciate "why" I believe both the frequency and severity of the mistakes will be less.

[Paul Hebert]

Right on Scott. I truly believe the best managers are those that set it and forget it - to quote the management guru Ron Popeil.

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/12/23/122309-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks Wally - always an honor!

[Charity Hisle]

I found this through the Three Star Leadership subscription. Great post, sharing it with others.

[Heather Blume]

Paul,
Great article! I read an awesome book along these lines last year called "Whoever makes the most mistakes wins." It talked about how failure is necessary to success in any job, and I firmly believe it was correct. I also think that it's rare that people make mistakes on purpose. If they like their job and they like their manager, they aren't going to jeopardize it by intentionally messing up. So why do we treat them like they did it to be malicious?

Mistakes are great...I make them every day. I found that when I stopped trying to cover them up, I got a lot more done.

[Paul Hebert]

Appreciate it! Happy New Year!

[Paul Hebert]

Mistakes to me are the business equivalent of deviants in biology - no evolution without some sort of deviation from the norm. Without mistakes there is no advancement in the business.

[Henrik Mårtensson]

I agree. The value of failures in terms of information content has been known for a long time. It is a pity it is not more wide spread. The of allowing failure value in terms of morale may be even higher.

Here is a videocast I made on the value of allowing, and even rewarding, failure: http://www.youtube.com/user/kallokain#p/u/8/2h8pQI4mLDc

[Joe Bradshaw]

Hi Paul,

I think you make an interesting point about errors and how a company can deal with them. In many businesses the culture of quality control (I would call this error management) is the most important aspect to apply to any finished professional product. As far as failing is concerned there are no good jobs that you cant potentially screw up future work with after failing to produce what you promised. So what do you do when budgets and money are tight and people's jobs arent secure? Do you still allow a culture that allows failure in order to grow the leaders and employees?

Joe

[Paul Hebert]

There is a difference between failing to do what was promised or designed to do - and failing based on trying something new and different. Obviously, if you promise to do something and fail - that's not experimentation it's failure. No one would want to reward that. Same with quality control. If you have a process that's designed for quality - errors are not what you want.

What I'm addressing is a company allowing employees to try new ideas, try new ways, try new solutions. That is a very different set of circumstances than someone just plain making an error.