In the tech industry we often hear about how venture capitalists love to fund people who have failed.
In business magazines we read that failure should be celebrated, encouraged, and even rewarded.
Apply this in your business.
1. When you hire a sales person, do you look for someone who never meets quota?
2. When you hire a technical person, are you excited to consider a candidate who cannot pass a certification exam or has angered clients?
I do not think so.
The bottom line is NOT that failure is great, but mistakes can help people, processes and products improve when you intentionally and systematically learn from the situation. Here is one approach:
1. How did the person fail?
2. What did they learn from it?
3. What have they changed based on what they learned?
4. How were their relationships with people who were involved in or hurt by the situation affected by the failure?
#3 and #4 are most important for intentional leaders.
Do not assume your people learn from failure. Follow-up with them in a positive, encouraging manner to confirm they are learning from their mistakes.
Failure, or making mistakes, is human. We all do it daily.
Stop and think about that for a moment. No one ever makes it through a single day with perfect behavior and thought, depending on your spiritual beliefs and/or moral code.
Therefore since failure is such a regular part of life, how can we gain from itintentionally rather than repeat mistakes too often?
Here are a few ideas:
1. Develop and ask a set of open-ended questions specifically about failure during your hiring process.
2. Make time in your quarterly employee meetings to discuss failures according to this 4-step method. Maybe ask employees to discuss one of their mistakes this way so people can learn from open discussion of how others are growing through their mistakes.
SUGGESTION: Managers should hear each employee's planned presentation beforehand to avoid any embarrassing or damaging discussion. Or consider just doing this one-on-one with individual employees. Remember to focus on building employees up through this discussion. The objective should not be to have "gotcha moments" that are negative.
3. Keep an evolving list of your "Titanic Top Ten" - the ten biggest mistakes you have made in your career or life. Review weekly as part of your solitary weekly planning session to confirm your thoughts and behaviors are helping you avoid repeating those mistakes.