The Value Of Failure In Management

Only if a leader changes the way a member of the organization sees a failure, it can truly create a learning organization, one that has

Failure is not terrible, but it is not the worst reason to realize failure, or even to admit defeat.

Bringing this emotion to business management is the most dangerous moment for an enterprise.

So outstanding business leaders need to create a psychological safety environment to increase each person.

Robert Wood Johnsons, also known as "general Johnson", has developed a small family business into Johnson, one of the world's largest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and medical machinery.

Johnson has always been very successful, and one of the elements is that their managers know the importance of learning from mistakes.

Jim Bock was a very successful CEO of Johnson, and he worked in this position for 13 years when he retired in 1989.

At the beginning of his career, general Johnson gave him an important lesson to let him know the importance of learning from failure.

On one occasion, bok developed a new product, but it proved to be a complete failure.

"I just want to say congratulations! All business decisions are made.

If you don't make any decisions, you will not experience any failures.

The most difficult task I do is to let people make decisions.

If you always make similar decisions, I will expel you.

But I believe you can make more other decisions, and you have to understand that other decisions you make will fail more than success. "

When Bok became CEO, he still held the same idea: "if we do not take risks, we will not be able to grow.

All successful businesses are defeated by numerous whips. "

Prior to joining Johnson, bok had three career failures.

He made public his failure. He told Johnson about his dialogue with him countless times.

In this way, bok conveyed a vital message to his employees: to be brave enough to fail and learn from failure.

Recall a mistake made by an organization you are familiar with.

What did you learn from this failure? What else can you learn?

The great leaders are great because they allow them to fail and learn from their mistakes.

Usually, when we understand some business leaders, much information is related to their great achievements, but little is known about their mistakes.

It is precisely these mistakes that have paved the way for their success.

Just as few people know the record of the biggest baseball player in the history of the United States, Babe Ruth's third strike, few people are concerned about how many times Michael Jordan, the greatest player in history, has missed the ball.

For example, Richard Branson, founder of the British Virgin Group's innovation concept, Catherine Graham, the fearless chief executive of Washington Post, Richard Parsons, a wise chairman of Warner Group, or Thomas Watson, the legendary president of IBM, knows too much about their eminence and excellence, and the failures and sufferings they experience are hardly known.

This makes the aspiring followers erroneously believe that the heroes in their hearts are on the road to success without any failures or mistakes.

In order to emulate their heroes, they will do their best to avoid or hide failure.

They stop taking risks (they can't learn from failure) and become very defensive (unable to learn from feedback).

Maintaining a perfect image in their own eyes and others' eyes is much more important than learning and growing.

Sidney Finkelstein studied the major business mistakes committed by more than 50 enterprises.

Ironically, the higher the management level, the more they like to use all kinds of excuses to remedy their perfectionism.

The highest level chief executive is the most serious.

For example, in a company we studied, the chief executive, in a 45 minute interview, explained why a disastrous mistake that had been criticized was happening in his company from beginning to end.

Regulators, customers, governments, and even other executives in the company are all responsible, but he did not mention his own fault.

This behavior of an enterprise leader is rather harmful.

First of all, employees are accustomed to imitating their leadership practices. They will see what leaders do, not what they do.

If a manager does not admit his mistakes or never learn from his mistakes, it can only become employees' ears to call on employees to try and fail.

Second, such behavior only aggravates what Daniel Gorman calls "CEO's disease". When people hide important (usually unpleasant) information, the information vacuum around leaders appears.

This kind of "CEO disease" is a common phenomenon in enterprises.

Tom Peters pointed out that "senior managers usually do not hear bad news", especially when employees notice that their leaders often resist, make excuses or even shout abuse on reporting people when they receive bad news.

Subordinates are reluctant to provide feedback, depriving leaders of the most accessible and important resources conducive to development.

Traditionally, the performance of the employees is evaluated by their bosses. Until now, managers are more accustomed to evaluating subordinates by superiors, rather than bottom-up feedback, especially negative evaluation and feedback.

However, it has proved that subordinates' evaluation of their superiors is more accurate and objective than that of their superiors, and it can better predict whether the enterprise can achieve long-term success.

As Jack Welch, Bill George, Anita Roddick and other successful leaders have often mentioned, "facing facts is the backbone of successful individuals and successful enterprises."

When the accurate information of employees can not reach the top level, they lose managers and the whole company is doomed.

If a manager is rude and disrespectful to his employees, employees will become afraid to express their feelings.

However, managers are not enough to be friendly and respectful to employees.

In order to prevent "CEO disease" in organizations, leaders need to ask for feedback regularly, at least to ensure that those who report bad news get the same treatment as those who report good news.

Leaders in business and other fields must create an environment where everyone can provide real information, and not only employees say they can do so, but are truly encouraged and willing to do so.

Do you know which leader has created an environment that encourages learning from mistakes? What are the special things that this leader has done?

Learning from failure is easier said than done.

The study of learning organization by Mark Cana and Amy Edmondson shows that most organizations claim that "learning from failure is very important" is just a statement, and only a very small number of organizations really put it into practice.

This is because "looks good" (glossy and perfect) is more attractive to people than "really good" (frankly speaking of failure and learning from it).

Kana and Edmondson suggest that to deal with the fear of failure everywhere, we can reconstruct our definition of failure: "as a human force, we are educated by society as a person who wants to isolate himself from failure.

We should redefine failure. Failure is not a product of connection with shame and weakness. Failure is a manifestation of courage, adventure, exploration and progress. It is a vital and indispensable step in our entire learning journey.

Only by changing the way members look at failure can leaders create a real learning organization, a competitive, adaptable and pleasant working environment.