What if I get it wrong...?
We've all heard that question (or some variant) in our head - often delivered in that ominous tone that our brain reserves for occasions when it truly wants to undercut our self-confidence - "OMG - what if I screw this up?" "What if what I say falls flat?" "What if this doesn't work?" "What if I don't achieve my goal?" Even the most confident of individuals can have those unsettling moments of fear when taking steps into an unknown situation.
It's completely natural of course - fear is a hard-wired mechanism that starts in the part of the brain called the amygdala which is designed to keep us alive (yes, I googled it.) It also doesn't help that our work environment doesn't always look at failure as a benefit to the individual, team or organization as a whole.
Wait - what? Failure as a benefit? Coach Dan has completely flipped his lid this time! Maybe, but not because of this line of thinking.
Companies innovate because of failure
Without failure - we might not have WD-40, Bubble Wrap, Pacemakers, iPhones, Wheaties, fitness trackers, plastics or countless other products and services that we rely on to one extent or another today. Proctor and Gamble has a "Heroic Failure" award that honors employees or teams who gained the most insight from failed projects or tests. Facebook's culture was built around constant experimentation and risk taking.
Companies that truly drive innovation encourage appropriate risk taking and accept that failures can uncover valuable lessons that help the organization to succeed.
Agile teams learn from failure
What do we do at the end of every sprint? We conduct a retrospective. We thoughtfully carve out time to ask ourselves and each other - "What went well? What didn't go well? What are we going to do differently?" Our shared values and principles remind us that we don't settle for good enough, or status quo, but continually challenge ourselves to improve our effectiveness, efficiency and engagement! We challenge ourselves to try new things all the time.
Do all of the things we try always result in the improvements we're looking for? Heck no. Is that ok? Heck yes! Because with each experiment, and each new thing we try we learn. We learned that it helped us, or it didn't. Its data that we have that we didn't have before. How is that not a benefit ourselves, our teams, our business and ultimately our customer?
Ok great - so you've proved your point Coach Dan - failure can be a good thing - we get it. So what?
Are you creating a culture where it's ok to fail?
Yes - I know. We work at a bank. We are a regulated industry. We are focused on risk management. I'll go ahead and say it - our culture here doesn't always reward and celebrate failures / mistakes for the blessing that they are! That doesn't mean that we should let our fear of failure stop us from asking questions. From trying new things. From experimenting and taking calculated, transparent risks. From (dare I say) failing fast and learning?
Take time to reflect-
If only you had the time to look back and think/talk about what worked, what didn't and what you could do differently.... oh wait! You do! Every retrospective you have the opportunity to set up an experiment in the next sprint. It could be a different way of working together as a team. It could be mini- A/B test on content. The point is - get curious about why something happened, and what could be done differently to effect a different outcome next time! Then reflect on it after you've tried! What did you learn? What does that tell you? How would you approach it differently again? (See how that works there?)
Look for challenges -
Have a pretty good sprint? Deliver a really good feature or campaign? Basking in the glory of a job well done? Excellent! What's next? How can it even be more awesome next time? Our bets don't have to be big - we just have to keep making them. Settling for good enough results soon turns into a culture of "don't rock the boat". We want you to be curious. We want you to ask questions. We want you to do better than last time, even if last time was awesome. If your team hasn't experimented in a while - might be a good time to start asking questions!
Master the use of the word "yet" -
Every single time the phrase "we can't do that" is uttered - get into the habit of following that up with the word "yet." It encourages us to say "why not" which we know can lead to some really good learnings! It keeps the door open for next time. It keeps the door open for things to change. It keeps the door open to be curious about how we can get to "let's try it!"
Celebrate small wins and failures -
It's great to celebrate wins, big and small! It helps to reinforce the sense of accomplishment. It helps to show that we've delivered value. When was the last time you celebrated a failure? When was the last time you stood up loud and proud and said "I screwed up!" When was the last time you celebrated trying something that didn't work out, but you gained valuable data and insight? I'm not talking about spinning a failure into a win (which we can be tempted to do around here...) but truly saying - "Here's what we tried. Here's what we learned. Here's how that insight is guiding us forward." Managers - maybe dedicate one team meeting a quarter and host a "Oops Award Ceremony". As my good friend Christine says, "Claim it, name it and learn from it!" You'd be surprised what normalizing that conversation can to the team's effectiveness over time!
Have you failed yet today? Why not?
I'll ask my patented "what's stopping you?" question now. Being safe all the time means you're not pushing boundaries. It means that you, your team, and our business isn't growing. Does that mean that we should go out and make an enormous bet today? Nope! If failing feels too risky/too big, it probably is! That doesn't mean we stop and put the idea under the rug and pretend it isn't there...it means we ask a follow-up question - how could we test something smaller... How can we learn? How can we try something small in a controlled way that will give us a hint that we're on the right track?
We all win together.
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