I’ve started enjoying being wrong, a little strange but let us see why. This is because I’ve learned that getting it wrong eventually gets me closer to getting it right. And nothing makes you change like getting something wrong in public, your body and brain naturally work together to prevent this from happening again.
It is nature’s way of making sure you don’t get devoured by a lion. This same instinct is invaluable for improving & especially since the goal is not making an ass of yourself, a second time. As the leader of a team, you want to reward being wrong by pursuing things with large upsides even if it sometimes means failure. How fast you learn determines your success in the long term, nothing teaches you faster than failure.
The stoics have a phrase Amor Fati, meaning “Love of fate”, they delight in all events in life simply because it happened and it was therefore necessary. So when your team try something new and it doesn’t work, celebrate. “Amor Fati!”, what did we learn? how lucky were we to have this opportunity to learn? how jealous must our competitors be by now?
When you celebrate failing, you allow people to take chances, to innovate, to find great opportunities. So, Amor Fati!!
Where to start
- Share times you’ve failed in the past. Make it ok to discuss the failure
- Celebrate failures. Hold them up as examples to others
- Pump energy into failures, don’t just say we’ll do better, really celebrate them and show them how much you value them
- Share these failures & learnings with other teams
- When you win, acknowledge past failures that lead to this success