Failure

Failure is a difficult topic for many people. One fellow blogger, Ron from The Road Map, wrote a comment on the article that “So many times we just shutdown and struggle to learn from the experience.” That’s so true. Failure for some can be devastating. It can be paralyzing. But does failure always have to bring about an end?

Leadership quote about failure from Thomas Edison:
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Failing Forward

I first read the quote from Thomas Edison in the book Failing Forward by John Maxwell. John takes the position that everyone will encounter set-backs on the journey to success. The difference between those who succeed and those who do not is how they respond to set-backs and failure.

Learning

A big portion of life is spent learning. There’s the old saying, “Live and learn” and those who try to encourage repositioning by saying, “learn and then live.” The most important thing to remember is that you still have to learn – create a lifetime habit of learning.

I remember an old chaplain from the Army, Major Frye (no relation to me). Who talked about how glad he was when he was finishing college, because it meant he would not need to spend a lot of time reading and learning the materials for classes. But soon after college, he realized that he was spending more time reading and learning for his job. He had to research, analyze, critically assess, and write about many topics on the job. He realized that living was a journey of learning. Once he learned to embrace learning, his attitude changed and he started to enjoy it – he created a lifetime habit of learning.

Learning from Failure

The best way to respond from failure is to learn from it. I must strongly emphasize that I do not mean to dwell on failure for that could lead to the paralyzing effect and, frankly, regrets are waste of time; you cannot change the past. You can change the future. If you learn from your failures and create a roadmap for how you would have done things differently, you would then have a plan to guide you through similar situations in the future.

Committing to not Fail

That last part that I would like to touch on is commitment and perseverance. I wrote an article title “3 Facets of Commit” and laid out three key considerations for commitment. A quote that is commonly attributed to Thomas Edison is, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This quote speaks a lot about commitment and perseverance. It also speaks volumes about learning. You don’t try the same thing over and over again and hope for different results, you learn what doesn’t work, make adjustments, and try again. When you make a commitment and persevere, you learn how to succeed.

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Leadership quote from John Wanamaker:
“No mistake or failure is as bad as to stop and not try again.”

One of the most important differentiators between leaders and those who do not lead is the response to set-backs, or, what others call, failures.

1. Learn from the experience.

The entire point of “experience” is that you gain knowledge, wisdom, and understanding from it. Employers often measure prospective employees on their experience – what thr have done. The experience demonstrates, that since you have done, are capable of doing again, and capable of doing better.

2. Share what you learn from the experience.

A lot about leadership is sharing your knowledge and experience; otherwise known as mentoring. Your experience and, more specifically, how you grow from your experience, define you. Sharing your experience provides a conduit to influence others. One of the strongest ways to influence others is through what you learn from your experiences.

3. Write and codify how you would keep from failing if you were able to do it again.

Do not spend a lot of time in contemplation about the past, because it is not wise to dwell on history and keep from moving toward the future. However, if you don’t learn from history, you will repeat it. One of the simplest and most powerful methods to learn from your experience is to write out how you would deal with it if you were to repeat it. The act of writing it out places the lesson in your mind for when you encounter a situation or problem that is similar to it. Your writing becomes a plan for dealing with those situations.

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Last week, I wrote Dreams, Goals, Planning, and the Decisions that Matter with the core message that dreams can become reality through implementing long-term goals with sound planning and decisions.  I want to build on that with the business and leadership focus on vision.

Leadership quote from Allen Pathmarajah:
“The difference between vision and hallucination is action.”

3 Steps to a Successful Vision:

1. Have a Vision

Many corporations and organizations have a corporate vision.  These are usually developed by top management and reflect the long-term goals for the company.

This vision should be definite, but broad.  It is better to say that company is seeking to have the largest market share in its industry or to develop the highest quality products than to merely say the company is seeking to be the best.

2. Communicate the Vision

A corporate vision is a top-down message.  Top managers from the CEO and COO to the department directors should communicate the vision.  There should be publications (posters, newsletters, and email messages) that make the vision known by everyone in the company.

3. Take Action on the Vision

As Allen Pathmarajah notes, the vision is useless to the company if it is not acted upon.  To ensure the vision gets needed action:

A. Keep the vision up to date, fresh, and relevant.

The vision should be continually reviewed, updated, and kept relevant.  If the company has achieved the largest market share, then the vision should be changed to “sustain the largest market share.”

B. Continually communicate the vision.

It is not enough for one newsletter to communicate the vision.  If the last time your employees read or heard about the visions was three years ago when the new CEO put it out, then your employees have forgotten about it.

C. Demonstrate what the company is doing.

There should be evidence of how the vision is implemented within the organization.  This evidence should be shown and communicated with the vision.  The words of the vision should be exemplified through the activities of the company.  This is the “how to” message from the CEO to every manager.

For more on action, read Ready, set…Action and Do Something.

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Every leader has dreams.  Most of us have had dreams since we were children.  We had dreams of who we wanted to be – a fireman, a policeman, a soldier, the President of United States, a CIA spy, or, maybe, rich.  Whatever it was and whatever it still may be, dreams can come true.  In order to make them a reality, you have to think of them as something different than dreams – goals, or, specifically, long-term goals.

Goals

I once told a friend, “All your dreams can be realized with the mere implementation of incremental goals.”  In college, most of us learned about creating long-term and short-term goals.  You can have short-term goals without long-term goals, but, generally, you cannot have long-term goals without short-term goals.  Short-term goals are the steps on the path to long-term goals and planning is the key to the gateway to that path.

Leadership quote from Lester R. Bittel:
“Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true.”

Plans

Creating a plan lets you know what to do and when to do it.  Planning creates tasks for every day and detailed plans even create tasks for every minute and every hour.  Planning and tasks keep you focused and direct your effort to accomplish the short-term goals.  Once you have reached the short-term goal, your planning drives you past it to the next short-term goal.  If you have created a good plan that accounts for problems, stumbling blocks, then you can work your way around those obstacles on the path toward your long-term goals.

Decisions

The better your plan is, the better your decisions will be.  Planning requires you to think about the many facets of a task and objectives (short-term goals).  When you plan, you should thoroughly consider the points of who, what, when, where, why, and how, and, also, realize that each may have multiple sub-points.  When you plan, then when you encounter a decision point, you have the knowledge and the considerations to guide your decisions.

Remember: “All your dreams can be realized with the mere implementation of incremental goals.” ~Jonathan Frye

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 Leadership quote from Peter Drucker:
“No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”

1. Learn better management techniques:

There is a difference between leadership and management, but leaders need the skill set of a manager in order to complete the active job of leadership.

2. Organize and plan every project and task:

Even when you don’t have the time to plan, the critical element of continuous success is planning – put some cognitive power behind your tasks.

3. Delegate through empowering your people:

The members of your team will respond to the tasks that you delegate if they are constructive to their desires to participate in the team – use that desire.

4. Always seek improvement:

Continuous improve leads to continuously getting better; what ever measure you assign, whether effectiveness or efficiency, be a change agent and seek improvement.

5. Move past mistakes:

Sorry, your not perfect, but good news – no one is!  Just follow step number 6.

6. Never make the same mistake twice:

I don’t want to advocate beating yourself up over a mistake, but make certain the lesson is learned and the problem is mitigated.

7. Pay attention to the little things:

At the end of it all, the details are the weakest links that cause most of the problems – pay attention.

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