I’m working my way through a thought-provoking book – Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders
Prevent Problems Before They Happen, by Michael Roberto. The main focus is
on how business schools do a terrific job at training MBAs how to solve
problems, but do little to help them find
those problems in the first place. The book identifies ways to find the small
problems that may become bigger if left untouched.
One way to find problems is to encourage mistakes. Huh?
Really? YES! Maxine Clark, founder and CEO of Build-a-Bear Workshop, even
provides “Red Pencil Awards” to people who make mistakes, and find a better way
of doing business through that mistake. Clark attributes her mistake-finding
attitude to her first-grade teacher, Mrs. Grace. Clark explains how Mrs. Grace
would award a red pencil to those who had made the most mistakes, because she
wanted her students to be actively involved in class discussion, trying to
answer all questions, no matter how challenging. Clark states, “She didn’t want
the fear of being wrong to keep us from taking chances. Her only rule was that
we couldn’t be rewarded for making the same mistake twice.”
Awards for identifying – even making – mistakes encourage a
learning environment, allowing team members to experiment, try new methods, and
step out of one’s comfort zone.
Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, states “If you want to
succeed, double your failure rate.” Finding where you fail and adjusting or
modifying to no longer fail ensures that you are actively learning, and
therefore growing in your knowledge. There are lots of stories about failure in
invention and business – the light bulb, the “post-it” note. Sometimes the
initial plan for a product can be seen as a failure when actual use is what
takes off. Kleenex tissues were initially designed to remove make-up, and it
was a source of initial frustration when the company discovered that folks were
using them to blow their noses!
One of my favorite quotes is from the fictional teacher, Ms.
Frizzle, in the book series “The Magic School Bus” – “Take chances, make
mistakes, get messy!” How else will you learn, succeed at something new, and
bring more value to your client?
Now, get out there and fail! Then fail again! Your eventual
success will be that much sewetre sweeter!
