How has your week been? Have you encountered any failures? How about your team? Was there someone that made a huge mistake, that threw everyone for a loop? If so, how did you handle it? I hope you were gracious and reminded either yourself or your employee that failure can be beneficial. It is easy for us to feel annoyed, frustrated and possibly even angry when an employee makes a mistake, especially when it comes to a high cost, either monetary or otherwise to our business. However, it is imperative that we use this as a teachable moment. John Maxwell calls this "failing forward". He says that our failures should move us forward as we learn from our mistakes. Often our mistakes make way for new possibilities.

If you delegate responsibilities to your employees, which every effective leader should do, make sure the responsibilities also come with instructions and coaching. Do not assume that because you know how to do something that your employee knows and understands this. Often, it is the lack of a clearly defined task that results in failure. I have found this to be the case when I have been to busy to give clear instructions and follow up with employees to see if they have any questions. In the end it takes more time to fix the problem than if I had taken the time to define the task clearly and given ongoing feedback.

If you have given clear instructions and there is still a mistake made it could be due to underlying issues you are not aware of. This is the time to let your employee know that failure is a way of learning what we could have done different. It is a way that we can learn from our mistakes.

These are the benefits of failure; to learn from our mistakes, to establish clear communication and to be gracious to others.

Make it a great day!

Labels: communication, failure, feedback