Just as failure is rarely the result of a single cause, so too is success dependent upon good outcomes, often small ones, compounding over time. Winners do so by creating favorable events more often and more consistently than others and building upon them to increase the probability that their progress will continue to improve more rapidly than their peers. The goal is to create a virtuous upward spiral where every win increases the chance of further wins. Like attracts like.
Much of reaching this higher order of success turns on a team’s ability to learn faster than the norm and to SHARE and implement that vital knowledge throughout the organization. It is not enough to know, we must do as well as we know. To do so requires that both psychological safety and trust exist in a culture; the total elimination of the twin mega-blocks to learning and growing: blame and shame. (I detest those two emotions, for they stifle human progress! – NSC).
Team Members must feel comfortable owning their stumbles: To truly be a learning organization, all must be able to learn from the experiences of the one which obviously requires that they be shared. The only real mistake is the one you don’t learn from and in our highly interdependent world, that learning ‘you’ needs to be the whole team, the entire organization.
The inspiration for this blog post came from ‘Chasing the Rabbit’ by Steven J. Spear
Closing Quotes:
“You have to own your mistakes, otherwise your mistakes own you.” – Paulo Coelho, b. 1947, The Alchemist
“More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them.” – J. Harold Smith, 1910-2001
“There’s a bit of hidden magic in every mistake. The magic is called learning.” – Robert Kiyosaki, b. 1947, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” – John Calvin Maxwell, b.1947, Developing the Leader Within
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
