Learning from Mistakes/Failures

Introduction
How do you create a company culture where staff feel free to make mistakes?
Generally failure stems from risk-taking and can lead to valuable innovation
"...in the long-running, defeat will teach you more than victory ever could..."
Jonathan Hancock, 2024
Research shows that around half of us expect to fail!!!!!
Need to learn to harness the power of experimentation, ie testing, failing, learning, and growing and succeeding as a result.
How to embrace failure:
i) weigh up the risks and rewards (endeavour to have potential rewards exceeding the actual risks; have a default position)
ii) mitigate the risks (put safety measures in place to protect your business assets (tangible and intangible)
iii) embrace the privilege and purpose of failure (
"...Seize opportunities to experiment and make testing yourself a habit. It'll start feeling a little bit less risky each time, and you'll see more and more of the learning that failure brings..."
Jonathan Hancock, 2024)
Managers creating the right environment for healthy risk-taking:
i) encourage everyone to offer alternative ideas and solutions (initially chasing quantity rather than quality, ie the more ideas the better;
"...encourage people to try their ideas out in a purposeful way by focusing your energies on what problem might get solved if the idea is a success..."
Jonathan Hancock, 2024
ii) praise what people learn from failing (learn from everything you do, including failures; by asking the following questions
- What did you learn?
- What could have been done differently, ie improved upon?
- What will be tried next?)
iii) assess failures from a heart and head perspective (focusing on emotions can help you understand failure better and motivate you to try again)
Summary
"...there is plenty to gain from finding even more opportunities to safely try and fail......need to be more purposeful in our experimentation, do it all the time......and make sure we learn from our experiences - whether we succeed in a particular challenge or not..."
Jonathan Hancock, 2024