Any project, business, or action might fail. This is true regardless of how prepared you are, how skilled the people executing that idea are, or how hot the market for certain goods or services might be. Failing seems bad, and the connotation of that word drives us to avoid it at any cost.
Failure, however, is one of the things we will certainly face during our lifetime -all of us! From the small failures of dying during a boss fight in a video game or getting rejected when asking for a date, until the big ones that cost us a lot of money and time.
Despite the fact that it’s inevitable, we shouldn’t leave the success of our project or actions to pure luck -and that’s when bracing and understanding failures can help us. When we simply avoid failure, we might be losing the opportunity to learn from it; therefore, the chance to not fail again.
Embracing failure is not only important, but EXTREMELY valuable for both human beings and organizations: we learn to walk as babies after falling down many times, we learn how to multiply two numbers after getting the wrong answer a number of times, we learn how to publish an app after finding and correcting a thousand bugs, and we learn how execute projects after failing to plan and deliver several others.
The cognitive psychologist Gary Klein was interviewed about the theme and introduced the concept of a “pre-mortem” exercise, which involves analyzing any given project before “the patient dies.” He invites teams and companies to consider they are in the future and that the project failed: why did the project fail, and what could have been done to prevent it?
As discussed in a different episode of the Freakonomics podcast, people tend to be optimistic about projects that are starting, which is also why New Year’s resolutions will usually boost people’s morale. Being optimistic, team members will forecast that the project will be a success and might disregard risks, even those occurring in front of them.
That’s why Klein’s exercise drives people to think in the opposite direction: our project went wrong -what now?
Admitting mistakes -besides, of course, working to fix them- is extremely healthy for any organization and the first step towards improvement. Truthful diagnostics always start by listing mistakes and issues, and companies seeking improvement must be highly self-critical and admit errors.
What are clients saying? Could they be happier?
Why did our last projects fail (or, at least, derail)?
Why did we lose some of our better team members?
Could we be selling more?
Growth comes only from tackling the right areas, and an accurate diagnosis is vital to unlocking the potential of any organization.
Do you want to map out and fix issues in your business in Oxford County, or any other part of Southern Ontario? Talk to us!