Failure maketh man; What does your failure resume look like?

Updated: Saturday October 5, 2013 MYT 7:33:31 AM

Failure maketh man

BY ROSHAN THIRAN

What does your failure resume look like?

STANFORD professor Tina Seelig requires all her students to write a failure résumé “a résumé that summarises all their biggest screw-ups – personal, professional, and academic.” She insists that for every failure on the resume, the student must also describe what he or she learned from that experience. Reading her requirement for her students, I saw the power in such an exercise and starting scribbling my personal failure resume. As I jotted down all of my professional failures, I looked back to see if I gleaned any useful lessons which I later applied in life. Much to my surprise, one of my biggest failure (messing up at a business integration exercise early in my career in the United States), led to an amazing truimph on a bigger integration role in Europe. A huge part of the success was drawn from lessons learnt from my first failure. I also failed miserably in a business entrepreneurial venture while at university. The key part of that failure being poor at inventory management. In my first operational role running a business unit, I applied much of the lessons learnt from my inventory management mistakes and was extremely successful turning around a business. Humiliation, disappointment, discomfiture, shame, hurt are all characteristics of failure. Failure feels bad and it never sat well with me. Yet, we all know that failure is a necessary part of growth. Many people today talk about failure and its importance but most people don’t realise it is only when you mine lessons from your failures that you really learn. It is not about failing but about learning. An anonymous saying goes that “failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more wisely.”Lessons from failure

Seelig makes this “resume” assignment mandatory as “failures increase the chance that you won’t make the same mistake again. Failures are also a sign that you have taken on challenges that expand your skills. In fact, many successful people believe that if you aren’t failing sometimes then you aren’t taking enough risks. Additionally, it is pretty clear that the ratio of our successes and failure is pretty constant. So, if you want more successes, you are going to have to tolerate more failures along the way.”

Joyce James once wrote that “mistakes are the portals of discovery.” Such is the paradox of leadership – we can only succeed by experiencing failure. Regardless of our role in an organisation, from CEO to mailroom clerk, we all make mistakes. The key question is: Do we take time to firstly identify our mistakes and then learn from those incidents?

Great leaders take time out to study their failures. A failure resume is a great process to incorporate into our lives – and we should update it constantly.

So how does one write a failure resume?

Most resumes focus solely on successes and overlook failures that probably have a major impact on who we have become and a possible factor for our future victories. In fact, many interviewers today ask questions like “tell us about your weaknesses” or “provide us with a few examples when things didn’t go the way you planned and what you learnt from them.”

Having a failure resume helps you answer many of these questions and show that you have the humility to learn from your failings. The failure resume essentially lists out each of your mistakes or failures. Seelig suggests listing out all your failings in areas such as academic, personal life, social life and your professional failures.

A failure resume keeps your humility in check. Looking back at my failures actually help me empathise with others. I used to stress out significantly every time I failed.

Today as I look back at my numerous shortcomings and mistakes, I don’t worry too much when mistakes are made. I just figure out how to learn from it. This has helped me mature significantly.

So how do you do it? Writing a failure resume is a four-step process:

Column 1: write down the major failures in your life

Column 2: mention why you failed

Column 3: state how you have failed

Column 4: outline the lessons learnt from these failures

Learning from failures

Other than writing a failure resume, reflecting on our failures should be done periodically. Every month, quarter or year, spend a few hours looking back at your professional, social and personal life and see where mistakes were made. Here are some steps we can take to benefit from these failures:

1. Take ownership of your failure

Failure in our lives are never totally our own fault. They are a combination of various factors. It is easy to blame others for our failures. I have done that many times in good conscience as it was clear the failure was caused by various external factors.

Yet, in spite of this, you need to look closely at every failure and see how YOU contributed to it. (i.e. what should you have done differently?)

Great leaders never blame others for their failures. They take total ownership of their failures.

2. Apologise quickly and “fix” your mistake

Admitting your mistake to yourself is helpful. However, you need to address the issue and remedy the error (as best as possible!). By admitting mistakes, we not only unburden ourselves emotionally, we showcase our humanity and vulnerability to others.

This is an important part of your leadership journey.

In 2001, University of Michigan Health System launched a program encouraging health workers to report medical mistakes, which mandated telling patients and their families about errors, how it occurred and what steps were taken to prevent a similar mistake in the future.

This included a sincere apology to the patient or their family and offering fair compensation for harm when at fault. The result – a reduction in the number of lawsuits and other compensation claims, a faster resolution of disputes and lower legal costs. Saying sorry does help (really!).

3. Understand the root cause

Take some time to reflect on your mistake and understand the real issues behind it. Ask these questions:

·What went wrong? Was it a process issue, people issue or something else?

·Where did the error occur?

·How did the mistake happen?

·What was the root cause?

·What contributed to the situation? Did you contribute to the situation? How?

Once you have asked these questions and understood the root of the situation, you can move to learning from the situation.

4. Learn from the mistakes

Remember that everyone makes mistakes, but great leaders learn and become better. To really apply the learning from the failure, you need to ask yourself how you would do things differently in a similar situation next time this occurs.

As you start to write a plan of action which would differ from the action you took, you will start to truly internalise the learning you have gleaned from the mistake

Many of us make mistakes but shrug our shoulders and comfort ourselves by saying we have to “move on.”

True, it is important not to dwell too long on the past mistakes, but it is critical to take stock of these mistakes and work a plan of action on how we could have done it differently.

5. Talk and teach others what you have learnt

From our research at Leaderonomics, we find that the best way to solidify learning is to first practise, then teach it. Teaching others what we have learnt truly enhances learning. Sharing your lessons learnt with others is a great way also to be at peace with yourself on your failures (your acceptance of the failure as a lesson in life!) and it will showcase your humility as a person who not only fails but gains great insights and lessons from your mistakes.

Final thoughts

Harvard Business School’s Carmen Nobel states that “experienced entrepreneurs know that running a company that eventually fails can actually help a career, but only if the executives are willing to view failure as a potential for improvement.”

We all know that failure makes you a better leader – but it is really about learning and growing.

Mistakes are life’s way of teaching us great lessons. After all, failure maketh man!

ROSHAN THIRAN is CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise passionate about transforming the nation through leadership & youth development. The “Be a Leader” video series is now available for FREE for you to learn valuable leadership lessons.