Failure as a Necessary Component of Breakthroughs

In most organizations failure is implicitly, sometimes explicitly, understood to be career limiting.

Regardless of the rhetoric, and I have heard loads of it over the years of working with senior executives. They will say things like: "it OK to fail around here"; "we value failure as evidence of pushing the envelope"; "no success without failure" and so on. The truth is failure is not acceptable in most organizations.

Now if we distinguish between carelessness and failure we may have an opening for a new freedom to invent, create, discover, and take responsible risks - and in the process make major advances, even breakthroughs.

Carelessness I distinguish as not paying sufficient attention in performing in task that has a proven and established process or methodology to ensure the desired outcome. This thoughtlessness in executing a step or missing a step means that the desired outcome is not produced. And, in all likelihood what is produced has unwanted consequences.

Failure on the other hand is the consequence of trying to produce an outcome where there is no clear path or process. Where there is no precedent for a successful outcome. 

In every set of accountabilities there should be a component that requires invention, experimentation, and discover so as to produce a new level of performance. People cannot be free to be fully expressed in this area of their accountabilities if failure is taboo. Innovation and creativity will be stifled.

Also see, Some Perspective on Success and Failure.

 

Helping Employees Cope With Change

What is it about change? Sometimes we love it and thrive on it and other times were are threatened out of our minds by it.

Some years ago I worked with an executive who had been a tenured professor of computer science, with a wife who was a school superintendent, and three children in high school. He was the fourth generation of his family living in his mid-western city and, what's more he lived in the original family home. 

He was lured to silicon valley excited by the opportunity to do the work he loved, with more money, intellectually stimulating colleagues, oh, and a great all-year-round climate. After a relatively brief family council they all decided - Yes! let's go for it, let's move. A major change for the whole family, and it went off smoothly. And, after the fact,  everyone was happy they made the jump.

Fast forward six month: over a weekend the facilities people moved his office, one of a row of identical offices, one closer to the corner office of the CEO. Everything was photographed before the move and put in exactly the same place in the new room  - just one closer to the corner office. After the office was moved, apart from the fact it was closer to the corner of the building no one could tell a thing has been touched - everything was exactly as it had been in the room from which it was moved.

No one thought to tell my client. They did not consider it a big deal; if anything, they thought it would be a pleasant surprise to be one closer to the corner office of the CEO.

On discovering what had happened my client went berserk. He stormed out of the office ranting and raving and door slamming. For two days he was unreachable. He refused to answer the phone, the door, emails - he'd gone to ground. When the CEO did finally manage to speak with him all my client wanted to do was resign.

My question to him when he finally agreed to speak was, what happened? I am curious I said, you made enormous changes to you life and the life of your family coming out to CA with no upset, and yet here you are as mad as hell over an office move that few could even detect had happened - what happened, how come you are so upset?

After a lot of wrestling and introspection on his part, he said the simple difference is I chose to make the change in coming to CA. Changing my office was imposed on me. That's what has made me mad - they imposed change on me and did not even think to consult me.

So the lesson is clear, include people in authoring changes. And I don't mean get their buy in - but a genuine authorship of changes that are wanted and needed. 

If change is imposed, expect unhappy, stressed and mad employees. Now most don't have the luxury of displaying upset and anger as my client above did. That said, they wont cope with it any easier.

Musicians' Brains Keep Time – with one another

In a Scientific America article, "German scientists report in BMC Neuroscience that they measured the brain waves of eight pairs of guitarists using electroencephalography (EEG) while they played a modern jazz piece calledFusion #1 (by Alexander Buck). The researchers found that the guitarists' brain waves were aligned most during three pivotal times: when they were syncing up with a metronome, when they began playing the piece and at points during the composition that demanded the most synchrony."

One has to speculate this same synchrony is in play with high performing teams, teams focused on producing specific measurable desired results in time. 

So is it the very existence of the organizational equivalent of a metronome, and a jazz piece to play together, that allows for aligned, coordinated action, or synchrony?

Most of Your People Are Focused on Activities Not Specific Measurable Desired Results

When I make the assertion to senior executives that 60+% of their peoples' efforts are wasted - that is they do not produce specific measurable desired results in time - most senior executives counter that may be true in generally, but is definitely not true in their organization.

To support their assertion that I am not accurate in their case, I usually get variations of: we have goals and objectives, we measure and monitor, we have regular performance reviews, we have rigorous training programs, coaching, mentoring and we exit non-performers. An impressive list. And I am not persuaded.

I say that most people are focused on activities not outcomes. Try running these experiments and test my assertion for yourself:

1) In your regular walk-arounds stop in to your folks offices, cubes or wherever they are at work and casually, very casually, ask these questions:
Q: What are you working on?

A: I'm doing XYZ (will usually be expressed as an activity)

Q: What result are you trying to produce?

A: (Listen carefully and you will hear a variations activity - finish XYZ) 

If you do get a result the person is working for, then ask them:

Q: Who is waiting for the result? And when is it due?

60+% of the time in these casual questionings, you will discover that people are focused on activities. You will discover they are not clear what desired result their activity is designed to produce, and invariably, they will not be specific about who is waiting for it, and by when its due.

2) Drop in on meetings in progress, again casually ask: what result are you all working on?

Mostly you will get activities, an agenda item they are dealing with or a project they are working on - but seldom a specific result, by a particular time, for a particular person.

So what to do?

Start making promises; create a culture in which making promises to a specific person, to produce a specific, measurable, desired result, in time is a core competency of the organization. Such that everyone gets your capacity to succeed is a function of you capacity to make and keep promises - not just the explicit ones in contracts and agreements, but also the implicit ones. 

It is the broken implicit promises that are the source of dissatisfaction and complaints. So it would be smart for everyone to have a way to surface what they are.

But that's a topic for another post.

Collaborate, Cooperate and Give Up Command and Control- no REALLY!

Advice is often listened to more when the source of the message has undisputed credibility.

So, does John Chambers of Cisco have credibility? In spades!

Listen to him talk about "smart management for tough times". Then be coached by him, make some commitments about who you are going to be as a leader - then choose what you are willing to promise Without some commitments, and some bold promises, John's video will be interesting, and will fade from memory soon, and make no difference.

And that would be a failure of imagination, and a lost opportunity for you, your business and your people.