I am daring you to F.A.I.L.

I have come to realize that no matter what we do, we are bound to make mistakes and experience failure at some point in life. The natural tendency for many is to blame others for the mistakes or blame our circumstances. Let’s say you delegate some work and it goes badly, so you will blame the person; you might decide never to delegate work again. Or you may blame the failure on the lack of resources. While these aspects may be true, as a leader you could actually embrace this failure and use that knowledge to do better in the future.

This will mean one thing though, to see things  differently.

So what if we saw things differently? 

I came across two stories, one about Tom Watson Jr and the other about Thomas Edison. These two leaders saw things differently and it made a whole difference. I believe we can learn a great deal from them.

Tom Watson Jr, was the CEO of IBM between 1956 and 1971. During his tenure a young executive had made some bad decisions that cost the company several million dollars. He was summoned to Watson’s office, fully expecting to be dismissed. As he entered the office, the young executive said, “I suppose after that set of mistakes you will want to fire me.” Watson was said to have replied,

“Not at all, young man, we have just spent a couple of million dollars educating you"

So in this case rather than punish and fire this executive who had made mistakes probably trying to innovate, the leader showed him support and his action was a reminder that some of the most powerful lessons are learned through failures. A phrase we often hear but that is rarely applied. 

Edison was a prolific inventor; his story is quite known for the invention of the electrical light bulb. It is believed that after several attempts to make the bulb he said in a now, very famous quote: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."

It is also said that when his factory was burned down, with much of his life’s work inside, Edison said: “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew."

Like Watson Jr., Thomas Edison demonstrated a unique response to adversity.  These two leaders saw things differently. They viewed mistakes as an investment in learning and rather than beating themselves up or firing the employee, they used the failure as a stepping stone.

So next time you make a mistake or 100 of them, remember to learn from them and soon enough you will realize that you can do better.

As Henry Ford said: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

F.A.I.L. = First Attempt In Learning