Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Failing Forward

Leaders have to know and understand when it is acceptable to allow people to fail. Failure is a part of the professional development process. As long as all related risks to the business are low, leaders can afford to occasionally allow their folks to experience personal and professional growth via "failing forward."

Proper management of the failure experience on the part of the leader will help ensure the desired development is attained. A leader has to make the time to have a discussion with his or her team member on what caused the failure, how to avoid the same mistake in the future, and finally to ensure that the individual completely understands the cause of his or her failure. If each of these steps is accomplished, there is a much higher probability that there will not be a repetition of errors or failure. This process also aids in furthering the team member's professional growth and is quite necessary in developing heavy lifters as well as the future leaders of your business or organization. When having this discussion with one of your team members, be sure to begin by explaning the failure in logical terms at the beginning of the discussion. Be direct in your coaching; you have to make certain that there is a complete understanding not only of the failure but also of the implications it is having on your business. Once that is accomplished, you can start the process of pointing the person in a new direction and give him or her a nudge down the right path.

Everyone (leaders included) must be open to learning from their mistakes or bad decisions. If you are in a leadership position, it is likely that you comprehend the process of allotting the amount of time you should give to each decision based on the long-term implications it will have on your business. Obviously, the more critical and long-lasting the impact, the more time, thought and investigation is warranted. The ability to make effective decisions is part of the reason you are in a leadership position today. This talent can be taught and developed in others and is part of the "failing forward" process. By helping your employees learn how to make better decisions you will elevate and lead your organization to higher levels of performance. A big part of this developmental process requires giving employees the room to fail. This requires the leader to not only be receptive of some failure but also (and this is sometimes the tougher part of the process) requires the leader to get out of the way and let people do their jobs.

How comfortable are you with allowing your people to develop by "failing forward?"
"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." – John Dewey
"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." – Henry Ford

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