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.