Making the Most of Mistakes

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

- Albert Einstein

Earlier this week I began writing about the second new year for leaders. You can read the introductory post for more background information here.  We have already admitted that the beginning of the school year has not been exactly perfect and mistakes have been made.  That brings me to the following question:

What do the best leaders do when they make a mistake?

• Run in a different direction
• Blame somebody else 
• Hide from anyone who knows the truth
• Ignore the mistake and it will go away

Unfortunately, none of these would be the correct answer.  Even worse, these are strategies employed by many leaders when they are facing their mistakes.  The best advice I ever received around making mistakes involves the quote that began this post.  As a leader you are striving to make your organization a better place.  This will invariably mean making quite a few mistakes along the way.  

If you aren't making mistakes along your path; you really aren't doing anything new or innovative.

What should a leader do with his or her mistakes?

1. Own the Mistake - The most important thing you can do is to own the error.  People want to follow someone who not only makes mistakes but is brave enough to own it.  This also encourages others to take risks and push the envelope without fear of repercussions or blame.

2.  Decide the Lessons Learned -  Failure is only beneficial if you learn something as a result of it.  Think about the following questions once you have owned the mistake.  Make sure you talk to other people and get their insights as well.

• Did you learn anything from your mistake?  
• Will it get you closer to the desired outcome?  
• What would you do differently the next time?  
• How will you use this information to propel your organization forward?

Failure is the key ingredient to success and innovation.  Your second new year will bring many more failures.  The power will be in how you handle each failure as a leader.

Creating the Future

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -Albert Einstein

How does it happen? 

When does it start? 

Where does it go wrong?

When do you start using the phrases... 

"This is how we have always done it."  

"That will never work here."

"Things are just fine the way they are"

You encounter these phrases often when you are trying to implement change or move an initiative forward.  If you do not encounter these phrases, you really aren't moving anything.

Many organizations attempt to use the same logic that caused a problem to solve it.  The concept of recycling is alive and well in many organizations as the same ideas continue to be implemented year after year.    

Unleashing creativity will be the key to sustained improvement in tomorrow's organizations.  How do you unleash creativity and stop recycling ideas?  Here are a couple of suggestions.

1. Lead by Example - Take chances, publicize failures, and model the thinking that leads to improvement.

2. Incubate Ideas - Give new, different ideas a safe place to be tested.  Successful ideas can then be scaled up and implemented effectively because people have a visual of what it should look like.

3. Reward Forward Failure - Forward failure can be defined as any effort to make improvement that doesn't work as planned but gets you closer to the end goal.  Provide opportunities, supports, and incentives for people who dare to be different.

Fostering failure and risk-taking will lead to a brighter future in the end. How are you creating the future where you are? B 

Forward Failure

"Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street." - Zig Ziglar

Failure is the greatest teacher that I have ever had in my life. I've learned more through my mistakes than I ever have through successes. One of the people I admire and read about often is Abraham Lincoln. Failure was a critical component to Lincoln's success. Here is a short list of the failures that helped him move forward.

• He failed as a businessman - as a storekeeper.
• He failed as a farmer - he despised this work.
• He failed in his first attempt to obtain political office.
• When elected to the legislature he failed when he sought the office of speaker.
• He failed in his first attempt to go to Congress.
• He failed when he sought the appointment to the United States Land Office.
• He failed when he ran for the United States Senate.
• He failed when friends sought for him the nomination for the vice-presidency in 1856.

Each one of these failures helped him move forward on his journey towards greatness. The most important thing I can do as a leader is to cultivate a culture of risk-taking and forward failure. This is the culture necessary to help students and teachers move outside of filling in bubbles sheets and into the world of problem solving, critical thinking, and creating new products/projects.

There are three things that we are currently doing to help cultivate a forward failing culture.

1. Provide opportunities for teachers and students to explore outside of the curriculum to find things they are passionate about and have them tie it into essential learnings.
2. Provide resources and support when presented with a new idea, approach, or plan to move the school forward.
3. Show people that forward failure is okay by supporting and assisting people when a project does not go as planned. This will lead to more risk taking and eventually a superior idea/product.

Lincoln is not the only prominent failure that exists in history. The video below shows several more. Keep in mind that Edison failed thousands of times before he revolutionized the world with his invention. Our students hold the key to the next great idea. We cannot continue to try to solve today's problems with yesterday's answers. We need to set up the environment that fosters the surfacing of that idea.

How are you cultivating a culture of "Forward Failure" in your work? Please share so that we can all move forward on this journey. B