This summer’s blockbuster Pixar movie Inside Out showed the value of emotions in developing a life worth living. Joy, sadness, disgust, anger and fear were the “emotional characters” shown us in dramatic 3-D. Mental health experts say emotional awareness is learning to distinguish and make friends with our feelings to better guide our behavior, decision-making, and communications in relation to others. One of the more complex emotions to “befriend” may be fear, specifically fear of failure and its negative influence on risk taking.
As kids, we failed lots of times while learning to walk, riding a bike and playing games. That’s how early learning happens – by trying, failing and learning. Inventors, athletes and scientists know the value of failure and regularly do so with no diminishment in their passion. For the rest of us, we shy away from failure – the fear of it leads to the delay or postponement of action.
Inside Out shows us how failure is our very own resource for personal development and all that’s missing to fully benefit is a shift in our perspective enabling us to embrace their lessons. We actually need failure to grow and fine-tune our idea-generation, decision-making and problem-solving talents. World-renowned futurist Daniel Burrus said, “The problem you think is your problem is not. Take your problem and skip it so you can see what the real problem is.” Yes, a shift in perspective is available with every failure, with each risk taken – that’s why they are creativity’s BFF.
In Profiles in Audacity,* five distinct types of audacious decision-making are analyzed as a direct challenge to the fear of failure. The book highlights stories on decisions made while in a crisis; others focus to venturing out beyond the known; others confront moments of conscience; still more show risking everything; and finally others point to hope. Which type of decision are you facing? What actions will you and your organization take? How will your organization embrace your next decision and take a risk in the face of failure? The CEOs quoted below believe in the value of failure in encouraging their organization’s growth. Hopefully you will, too:
• A culture of innovation requires discovery and experimentation. Only through rapid prototyping, trial and error, can association teams test new ideas and possibilities. Failure is not only an option, but a necessary dynamic in the quest for the truly powerful innovations our future demands. A team that doesn't make mistakes isn't breaking new ground. – Gary A. LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, CEO, Association for Corporate Growth
• Our staff makes time to do a post mortem on each project or initiative. We get excited when a great new idea is generated by the conversation around something that didn’t quite work the way we hoped it would or didn’t produce the expected results. It allows us to take our game to the next level. – Beth W. Palys, FASAE, CAE, president, Management Solutions Plus
• It is important to embrace failure as you learn by taking chances with your volunteer and staff leadership team to create a high performance association or risk mediocrity and irrelevancy by playing it safe. – Henry Chamberlain, APR, FASAE, CAE, COO, BOMA International
• Before I could encourage my staffto take risks, I had to get to the point of being willing to risk failure myself. Deepening my partnership with my Board has been key for me in being able to innovate, launch tests, acknowledge that certain projects might not achieve our desired results, and that we are constantly evaluating and learning from everything we do. – Dale E. Brown, CAE, CEO, Financial Services Institute
• In today’s hypercompetitive environment, association leaders, both volunteers and staff, are in constant pursuit of success. The pace at which we seek to attain success sometimes obscures our ability to appreciate the value of failure. We don’t take the time to understand why things truly failed in our rush to minimize the perceived “damage” and get onto the next big win. This short-term thinking means we miss some of life’s best lessons. I’m a firm believer in the thinking that there is success in failure. – Dawn Mancuso, MAM, CAE, FASAE, CEO, Hydrocephalus Association
*For more on Fear of Failure, read “Future Lessons From Past Leaders – What do Queen Elizabeth I, Thomas Jefferson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Boris Yeltsin and Dwight Eisenhower have in common…AUDACITY,” January 2008, Association TRENDS
Blanken is a leadership development workshop presenter and executive coach, strategic facilitator, and creativity guru, creating outsideof-the-box results using inside-thebox-resources. Contact her at rheaz@resultstech.com or at 301-320-8711.
Leadership Lessons Learned