Building New Stamina From Failure

This piece is the second of 10 short articles discussing the successful ways in which the best organisations around the world deal with major problems that impact on their ability to operate safely, profitably, sustainably and responsibly.  

One of the very biggest challenges that we face as both individuals and as organisations is the ability to understand and benefit from failure. We know that failure is inevitable, even under normal circumstances. Right now, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when all of us are all trying to do more with less under new and extraordinary circumstances, errors will be unavoidable.  Having a mindset that is prepared to accept this, and more importantly understand precisely why certain negative outcomes occurred will be essential.
I hope you find this and the associated articles helpful in coming weeks and months.

 “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!”
 
We have all heard this phrase, hey, we may even have uttered it ourselves a few times.  Sounds strong doesn’t it? But successful teams know that great solutions only come from a complete understanding of how a problem came about – and that requires an acceptance of all the available information, and, unavoidably, much of that comes from failures.  Long term stability is rarely achieved when organisations don’t even want to acknowledge failure, let alone discuss it.
 
So why is this so important? Well, just try to imagine life in an organisation that ignores huge swathes of readily available information and evidence and replaces this with decisions built on blind optimism, gut-feeling or opinion. Or worse still, one that uses its previous failures as a threat, rather than embracing the data for learning purposes.  Such an organisation would, in all likelihood, not last long and if it does, it certainly wouldn’t reach its full potential. 
 
In truth, very few organisations set out to make decisions in this way. But many do drift towards the kind of informal procedures and cultures that discourage the identification of mistakes and the active sharing of failure data.  When our teams are under pressure and lines of communication are stretched there is a hugely amplified likelihood of this. The Coronavirus pandemic is almost the perfect storm for this: Remote working, unpredictability, growing complexity, stress, reduced organisational redundancy…the list goes on. 
 
The richest source of information sits directly between what happened and what should have happened.
 
Of course, cultivating a progressive approach to failure is challenging and cannot be achieved quickly. And if an organisation has an embedded blame culture, or clumsy discipline, it’s harder still.
 
But we know that successful organisations work relentlessly to encourage their employees to share information.  Cutting-edge organisations are more open with their failures and they implement processes that close the gap between what happened and what should have happened. Alongside this, they develop and support an environment that maximises any opportunity to learn from negative events.
 
Fear of sharing negative information will only increase the frequency and the scale of future errors.
 
Organisations that successfully protect a culture in which positive and negative information is treated as equals are always going to be far better placed to make fully informed decisions throughout any crisis. They will better understand the potential effectiveness of solutions, the feasibility of their implementation and their genuine impact on resources. Crucially, they will have a far, far better understanding of the wider risks of any changes they make.
 
With Covid-19 rubbishing the play-books of many organisations this is an opportunity for many businesses to reappraise their workplace culture.  Ensure that your approach to error and failure is one of these key areas for reappraisal.  The payback will be substantial. 
 
Ask Yourself
Does your organisation have a truly objective approach to information?
How easy is it to discuss negative events?
Are you addicted to good news stories?
 
Key Point: All individuals and organisations make mistakes.  Fear of sharing the information and lessons learned will only increase the frequency and scale of future errors.