7 Ways Leaders Seize the Opportunity of Second Failure
You hoped they would do better but they failed again. Why?
Second chances – by themselves – prolong failure.
People will fail tomorrow in the same way they failed today, unless they change.
A second chance, apart from intervention, is tomorrow’s second failure.
Responding to second failure is one of leaderships most powerful opportunities.
7 ways leaders seize the opportunity of second failure:
- Explore failure deeply. Learn from last time before rushing to next time.
- What decision did you make that brought you to this failure? (Don’t say “us” when you mean “you.”)
- With this failure in mind, if you could go back in time, where would you go? Look for the point in time when a decision led to failure. What would you do differently at that point in time?
- Clarify commitments. What are you committed to do next time? How? When? How frequently?
- Identify what needs to stop. The likelihood of success increases when you stop doing things that sabotage success. Stop losing your temper, for example.
- Pinpoint new behaviors that need to start. Be specific. Make them simple and actionable.
- Establish follow up meetings. Don’t walk away from repeated failures.
- Provide mentors, coaches, training, and feedback.
- Remove responsibilities. When someone repeatedly fails, you put the wrong person in the job. Give their responsibility to another person. Reassign them.
- Have the tough conversation. “If we continue to give your responsibilities to others, we’ll be helping you find another job.” It’s unfair to minimize the consequences.
Responsible failure is about learning, growing, adapting, and trying again with renewed vigor. Failure never magically disappears.
Patterns of failure persist until leaders intervene.
How might leaders seize the opportunity in second failure?
Note: 30 winners of Mark Miller’s new book, “Leaders Made Here,” have been notified. Last Wednesday’s bookgive away was so successful, I’m repeating it this Wednesday (2/22/17).
This is a challenging subject for me. This post provides a great framework for dealing with failure.
Thanks Abe. Sometimes all we need is a framework that we can adapt for our own purposes. Best wishes.
Often it takes the third time, because we do the same thing during the second try. If we fail the first time, our thoughts are “I need to pay more attention” and we repeat the same actions with greater scrutiny, but likely the same result. The third time is when we try something different. With this in mind, ensure you look at the first failure from a systemic perspective, rather than an execution perspective, and your likelihood of success on the second try increases. JP
Thanks JP. If I understand your suggestion, it’s better to as what did “we” do to contribute to the failure when it’s a first failure. If you change the environment and the failure continues, look more toward the individual. Am I getting your message?
Dan, this is interesting:
“…Remove responsibilities. When someone repeatedly fails, you put the wrong person in the job. Give their responsibility to another person. Reassign them…”
The classic example of repeated failure is Edison and the light bulb. In this case, do you take Edison off inventing light bulbs put put him in charge in charge of corporate hospitality?
Perhaps the main thing to use to build on the opportunity of second failures is to make sure people understand that failure is not a thing to be hidden, concealed or to be ashamed of. I think you will struggle to get people to build on failure while they feel they have to conceal failure.
Thanks Mitch. Edison’s job was to experiment. As long as he is trying new things and learning as he goes, he’s a success. If Edison was a customer service representative who failed 1,000 times, it’s time for a change.
Your concern about concealing failure is important. If a person is able to conceal their failure – poor performance – there is a systemic issue.
I’m not too concerned about failures of energy and effort. However, we might need to come to the place of acknowledge that a person who persistently fails in the same area in the same way, needs to re-evaluate their strengths and find a new role.
I have found your comments on the last two posts very helpful. Thank you
Dan I think you’ve hit an important thing there: “Edison’s job was to experiment”. Way too many people look at the example and say Edison’s job was to invent a light bulb. As an experimenter, he’s great. As an inventor of that one thing, he’s not. The issue is now that today Edison wouldn’t get a thousand chances to run the experiment. If he haven’t invented the light bulb after about three tries, that would be his lot. With Edison’s track record on the light bulb, he wouldn’t get a job cleaning toilets today, because all that would be observed is the failures.
Dan, great 300-word insights as usual… Happy President’s Day brother.
Like most of your posts, I think to myself “I wish I had read this 2 years ago”
“People will fail tomorrow in the same way they failed today, unless they change.” This is so true. Unless you change the way your doing something, you will continue to get the same result. Learn from your mistake, take advice and retry in a different manner to ensure you get a different result.