The Inuit of Greenland traditionally paint their faces and pierce their cheeks to prepare for the Uaajeerneq, the Mask Dance. The elders dance to teach their youth how to prepare for the rigors of life, including how to deal with fear of failure.<\/p>\n
Irrespective of industry, organizational rank, or personal temperament, fear of failure is the one conversation that professionals, including those in the C-Suite, resist the most, even behind the closed doors of a coaching conversation.<\/p>\n
One of my group coaching clients said the mere act of talking about fear at work would make her look weak, so she keeps quiet. Her group nodded in agreement. We spent the next hour openly talking about failure and the fear of it.<\/p>\n
Without these honest conversations, learning doesn\u2019t happen and organizations are destined to repeat past mistakes, lose competitive ground and risk extinction.<\/p>\n
We don this work mask to appear confident and in control. However, similar to a child\u2019s Halloween mask, our work mask reduces our peripheral vision, preventing us from seeing resources and opportunities in our environment that are the very keys to solving our big thorny problems.<\/p>\n
We spend an inordinate amount of time, energy and cognitive bandwidth on maintaining our work mask, at a time when we need to be investing energy on learning, collaborating and innovating. Over time, we come to falsely identify with this mask, and we enter into a world where egos rule and self-protection is the object of the game. The casualty is our healthy self-esteem and a genuine sense of belonging.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>We believe the myth that our work mask protects us from harm. Humans are inherently risk-averse, a requirement for survival.<\/p>\n Dr. Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and author of the seminal book, Thinking, Fast and Slow <\/a><\/em> describes conducted an experiment that highlights how risk-averse we are. Study participants<\/a> were asked if they would accept a bet based on the flip of a coin. If the coin landed heads up the participant would win $200.00, but if the coin landed tails, the participant would lose $100.00. In other words, it\u2019s better not to lose $100 than to gain $200. In this experiment, the potential gain must be at least twice as much as the potential loss. According to Kahneman \u201cLosses loom larger than gains<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This fear of losing manifests as a risk-averse cultural within many organizations. Work teams and companies experience undue conflict borne out of the inherent tension between playing it safe and risk-taking.<\/p>\n In spite of our risk-aversion, companies must innovate if they are going to remain relevant in our turbulent, uncertain and complex world. The Boston Consulting Group<\/a> recently reported that thirty-one % of professionals identified a risk-averse culture as a key obstacle to innovation.<\/p>\n According to Baba Shiv<\/a>, professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School:<\/p>\n \u201cExperimentation and failure are essential to innovation because, by its nature, innovation is an unknown that can only be discovered through trial and error. Failure is the mother of innovation\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n The entrepreneurial rally cry of \u201cfail fast and fail often<\/em>\u201d understandably doesn\u2019t sit well with the quarterly reporting-focused corporate mindset. Nonetheless, that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t benefit from a healthier relationship with failure.<\/p>\n Comparison, insecurity and vulnerability (which we believe could be taken advantage of) are why we don\u2019t talk about our failures. Dr. Brene Brown, qualitative researcher and author, delves deeply into this topic in her book Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble and The Revolution<\/a>. Brown writes<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201cWe gold-plate failure\u2026skipping over it or sugar-coating the process and the pain involved in failing. Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity. Falling down, screwing up, and facing hurt often lead to bouts of second-guessing our judgment, our self-\u00adtrust, and even our worthiness\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n Shame is the final stop on this emotional cascade, which according to Brown is the \u201cmost powerful, master emotion<\/em>. It\u2019s the fear that we\u2019re not good enough<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n With clients, I overtly signal that it is appropriate and safe to take on this heady subject. With my choice of words, tone of voice, and body language, I model that this conversation is welcomed and healthy. I say, \u201cbring it on<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n The sense of relief that washes over my clients\u2019 faces is a telltale sign that they have been holding onto this burden for far too long. When clients talk about what keeps them up at night they harness the power to transform their relationship with fear for the better. As professionals appreciate the valuable data behind their fear, they learn lessons about what drives them to succeed and what gets in their way. More importantly, they begin to identify a source of rich information about how they see the world, which is one of the first steps to making bigger moves in work and life.<\/p>\n <\/strong>As a postdoctoral student at Caltech, psychologist Dr. Melanie Stefan wrote an article called \u201cA CV of Failures<\/a>\u201d in one of the most prestigious scientific journals, Nature. The International Journal of Science. <\/em>Publishing in this journal is a big feather in any scientist\u2019s cap.<\/p>\n Stefan poignantly wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cSocietal pressures to manage our professional image often gets in the way of us being whole, fallible human beings<\/em>. My<\/em>CV does not reflect the bulk of my academic efforts. It does not mention the exams I failed, my unsuccessful PhD or fellowship applications, or the papers never accepted for publication.<\/em> At conferences, I talk about the one project that worked, not about the many that failed. As scientists, we construct a narrative of success that renders our setbacks invisible both to ourselves and to others. Often, other scientists’ careers seem to be a constant, streamlined series of triumphs. Therefore, whenever we experience an individual failure, we feel alone and dejected\u201d.<\/p>\n Imagine what organizations would learn and how their teams would grow if leaders, particularly senior leaders, shared their biggest career mistakes? <\/strong><\/p>\n In his seminal book, Good To Great<\/a>, <\/em>Jim Collins writes about his teams speaking candidly as they worked together to discover the framework described in the book. He writes, \u201c\u2026 we would debate, disagree, pound on tables, raise our voices, pause and reflect and debate some more\u2026\u201d.<\/em>Had Collins believed he was right all the time, the framework that has been studied by countless organizations and business schools likely would never have emerged.<\/p>\n It\u2019s incumbent upon twenty-first-century leaders to admit they don\u2019t have all the answers. Hiring and cultivating a diverse team that sees the world differently than you is essential to developing the best ideas. Share an idea that might run counter to your team\u2019s current line of thinking. Encourage your colleagues and direct reports to speak out if they have an idea that they might typically keep to themselves. A specific question you might consider according to researcher and author, Dr. Amy Edmonson<\/a> is “Where am I wrong?<\/em>\u201d. Put another way, Dr. Jennifer Garvey-Berger<\/a>, author and executive coach encourages leaders to ask their teams \u201cWhat might I be missing here?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Adopting a mindset of humility, brimming with curiosity is where 21-century leaders can stand-out.<\/p>\n <\/strong>Ashley Good, Founder and CEO of Fail Forward<\/a>, helps organizations get the maximal benefit from failure. Good uses her expertise as an engineer to help teams and organizations design healthy failure processes.<\/p>\n According to Good:<\/p>\n “At Fail Forward<\/a>, we provide new perspectives on failure alongside the tools and skills to help us deal with missteps more productively \u2013 so that when we fail, we <\/em>Fail Intelligently<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/strong>. The mere act of documenting failure promotes the risk-taking, creativity and continuous learning required for innovation<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n When I interviewed Good she told me that there is no truth to the labels of \u201csuccess<\/em>\u201d or \u201cfailure<\/em>\u201d; because every situation contains elements of both.<\/em> When we can acknowledge that reality, we appreciate both where we have succeeded and learn from what didn\u2019t go so well\u201d.<\/p>\n Good told me that fear has value as it makes us test our ideas. \u201cWhat isn\u2019t healthy is when fear paralyzes us.<\/em> We need to acknowledge real risks and prepare for those risks appropriately. For example, imagine you sent an e-mail that you later regretted, or you bombed at an important presentation. These types of experiences help determine how they might impact your job, your career and the relationships that you hold dear\u201d.<\/p>\nRisk-Averse Workplace Cultures<\/h4>\n
Here are three strategies for putting fear of failure into perspective:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
1. Start talking about failure<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Write your failure CV.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
2. Anticipate being wrong. <\/strong><\/h4>\n
3. Maximize learning after a failure<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Fear has value.<\/strong><\/h4>\n