This post is by Terry “Starbucker” St. Marie, co-founder (with Liz Strauss) of SOBCon, a learning forum for small and medium-sized business owners in the U.S. Terry and Liz have recently launched Inside-Out Thinking, another venture that brings their SOBCon innovation and business experience to the corporate world through leadership training, customer care, and social media programs. He will be speaking at SOBCon 2011, which will be held in Chicago from April 29 to May 1.
“Success covers a multitude of blunders.” That was a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw, and it has stuck with me throughout my career.
What it ultimately told me was, yes, I was going to fail — multiple times. But if I was truly determined to overcome, or “cover” them, I absolutely needed to learn from every failure and leverage that accumulated learning into success.
In so many ways, I’ve grown to appreciate my failures, as counterintuitive as that may seem. Because I now know if I just let them go, without reflection, then they are doomed to be repeated.
There are seven failures that I believe bring the best improvement opportunities:
- Failure to prioritize. Many a bad decision has come from our lack of perspective on the importance of one thing over another. The key learning here is to fully grasp the concept of “opportunity cost” — the cost of not doing something in favor of something else.
- Failure to decide. If the buck is going to stop with us, then we need the courage to make timely decisions, regardless of consensus or not having 100% of the information needed to make them. We learn that more often than not, it’s better to “do something” then let fear and inertia overtake us.
- Failure to progress. When a target is reached, the bar must be raised. And when that target is hit, it must be raised again. And again. Complacency is a state that has to be avoided, at all costs, and the ultimate learning here is that continuous improvement is an essential focus of any enterprise.
- Failure to praise. Great talent needs to be nurtured and retained, in a manner that goes well beyond the paychecks and bonuses. These lessons come hard, after the loss of individuals who felt unappreciated and undervalued. We learn that humans need to hear these simple words: “You did a great job.”
- Failure to trust. When first taking on a leadership role, there’s always a strong “pull” to be involved in every decision, or to want to “sign off” on literally every dollar spent or contract signed. Until we learn that trust is an essential part of great leadership, we are doomed to overwork and a huge misapplication of time and talent.
- Failure to mediate. Every organization will have conflicts, whether it is person to person, or department to department. Successful leaders learn that stepping into the breach to resolve them, rather than standing back or ignoring them, can avoid bigger problems down the road and build influence throughout an organization.
- Failure to fire. Nobody likes to fire anybody. It’s one of the toughest things a leader will ever do. But when you know in your gut it’s time to cut the cord, cut it. Don’t wait. Your gut will usually be right. The failures here are a lesson to the heart — it can’t get in the way of these decisions (but it certainly can come into play in the manner in which it is handled).
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Great stuff, especially the last item about having to fire people. I've had to do it, and even when justified, it's never easy. I think that, as leaders, we wish to empower others and when we fire someone, we are acknowledging that for this particular person, his/her chances are up. Sometimes, we can also take a firing personally, ("How have I failed this person?").
But leadership comes down to making decisions that may be unpopular, but are, in the long run good for the whole.
Good stuff. Failure to accept failure I have lamentably seen far too often. This sometimes makes a bad situation much, much worse.
As someone who has been an employee and a boss, I can't agree with these points more, but especially with the last 5 points.
I can't tell you how often I have not been able to just let go and trust those that I believed in to do the job orginailly and accomplish my vision. When you praise and trust, your vision and business plan become contagious amongst your employees. They catch your passion and want to see success in the business for more reasons than just a paycheck.
Nice list, Terry, well done. The first one hurts the most. In this era of drinking from a fire hose work load, emails and deadlines, the ability to prioritize to start your day, prioritize on the fly, and even ask your requestor: "on a scale of 1 to 10, how urgent is this (request)?" are vital to doing the right things right now.
After failing to get a new position that I applied and practically begged for, I've been reading several blogs like this one to get my confidence back=) It's hard to accept failure when you're used to success…yikes! Thanks for the post.
Jess http://msjessicareeves.edublogs.org
Good list, I recognize all of them…My personal weakness: failure to act, especially where it comes to confronting people. I know what I have to do, I just procrastinate because it's something I hate doing…But the longer I wait, the worse the consequences!
Hi Molly, Ali, Phil, Kevin, Jake, Jessica and Rachel, and thanks for your comments and kind words! These are all hard lessons, but they certainly made a big difference for me as I progressed in my career.
Thanks again to you all, and all the best!
Terry
Also a good list of the 7 failures of leadership. Jumping back to the firing of an employee point that was made. Correct. It is not an easy task. But to make it easier or at least more justified – if all considerations have been made and all options have been exhausted and prior working with the person(s) completed then the final decision is to let the person go. Never easy. Think only of the business and never make it personal.
Howdy,
Great comments and good list. I agree with Ali most of these are failures in communications! It's rarely the functional/technical skills that get up & coming leaders in trouble, its the "soft-skills" that are often overlooked in education and coaching that derail people. After being in the managment development field for large multinationals for 25 yrs- I often wonder why the soft stuff is so hard for us to remember/do? Thanks for a great list…..
Jack
I think this is the firs time I liked an article so much. Thanks indeed. I would like to visit your other postings too. Can I link it in my blog at http://www.blog.epmworld.in?
Ram
@EPMWORLD_HYD
Thanks Craig, Jack and Ram for your kind comments! Ah yes, the often-overlooked "soft stuff"…..
Ram, fine to link, but be sure to give attribution to SmartBrief.
All the best!
Terry
Failure to fire is an interesting point. If you dread such discussions take heart for 2 reasons!
(1) You have a soul and care about your people
(2) Firing someone should be viewed as a College Commencement ceremony. Rather than thinking of it as an ending, employer and employee alike should think of it as a new beginning. Painful at first, but in the long run, better for both. No employee wants to work where they are unwanted, so have the hard discussion now. You owe it the employee!
Speaking as someone who was recently fired, I have a different perspective about this question.
I have worked at my company for nearly 14 years. Two years ago during a major reorg with layoffs our leadership dropped me into a highly technical position (vacated by layoffs) for which I was almost entirely unqualified, because they considered me an asset to the group and wanted to keep me, and felt that I was less unqualified than anyone else (!). My review at the end of my first year was encouraging: after a weak first half you're making progress, keep it up, you are on track for a great next year.
New managers, both above me and above my manager, followed a few months later. I walked into my midyear review with a clear conscience and no warning, and got fired. I was told that I just did not have the skill level to do the job at the level we needed it done, and here was my severance package, could I be gone in a week, please.
I fully acknowledge that managers have the right to choose their teams, and mold them as they like. But this is a big company, and a discreet conversation about helping me find another spot within somewhere would have been a lot less brutal than just hitting the ejector button.
Thanks for this perspective Lee – I agree with you, that was a "failure to do the right thing".
I wish you all the best
Terry
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@ Lee, I entirely agree with you. When you are assigning someone to a task, the person above should make sure they have the appropriate skill set, necessary resources, and the backing from management.
The worse situations I’ve seen is where someone is unqualified for a job and get assigned to it anyway. As difficult as it is to have the conversation with that person, “that maybe your 10 years in Accounting didn’t prepare you for a Senior Graphic Design position”, it’s much less difficult than giving them the boot for not being a great Graphic Designer.
[...] According to Terry St. Marie, co-founder of SOBCon, a learning forum for small and medium-sized business owners in the U.S., leaders need to appreciate our failures, as counterintuitive as that may seem. Because if we just let them go, without reflection, then these failures are doomed to be repeated. [...]
[...] 7 failures of leadership and what we should learn from them via SmartBlog on Leadership by Guest Blogger on 3/22/11 [...]
I have one to add: FAILURE TO COACH.
Too many times, the boss doesn't coach their employees, letting some get away with things that simply aren't acceptable in the workplace. As a supervisor, it's their responsibility to coach their employees on their actions. Notice I said "coach", not "confront". Confrontation has a negative connotation. Use the coaching session positively, offering alternative solutions. The person receiving the coaching won't feel threatened (they may not even know there's a problem…especially if the boss hasn't said anything.)
All in all, this is a great article! Keep up the great work!
Kirk Baumann
Creator, Campus to Career http://www.campus-to-career.com
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