Putting Smart Failure Into Action

We’ve spent the last few weeks diving into the ideas in Amy Edmonson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well. Our goal is to figure out how we can make the best use of our failures by learning from them; the first two blogs covered what we’re up against.

It’s human nature to shy away from failure and avoid exploring or discussing it with others. Our evolutionary history has primed our brains to fear failure and, more importantly, the rejection it could cause, on the same level we fear hungry predators and deadly illnesses. That’s our first hurdle.

Our second hurdle is that learning from mistakes requires us to be in a specific kind of environment—one in which we feel psychologically safe. Psychological safety is often misunderstood, and even those with the deepest understanding admit that it’s hard to pin down. Edmondson herself concedes that, “it’s more magic than science.”

That hasn’t stopped scientists from studying psychological safety. Over the past nine years, 185 papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals. They have shed much light on how individuals can work to learn from their own mistakes and lead their teams to do the same.

CHANGING YOUR MINDSET

Choosing to learn from your mistakes requires a total shift in mindset. In the beginning, you’ll be fighting your own instinct to ignore and hide errors. You’ll only be able to explore your mistakes if you value learning over knowing, and continually remind yourself of that. You have to train yourself to care more about the new information you can learn from your failure than about the fact that you were wrong.

Edmondson shares a useful tool for reminding yourself to reassess your reaction to a failure in the moment. The technique originally appeared in Larry and Hersch Wilson’s book Play to Win: Choosing Growth Over Fear in Work and Life, and is a simple three-step framework known as “Stop—Challenge—Choose.”

Your mind’s reaction to errors is automatic. But when you feel yourself reacting to a mistake, whether by wanting to ignore it, blaming someone else, or letting it keep you from pursuing what you want…stop. Take a breath and step back to assess the situation from a wider perspective. Next, challenge the thoughts you’re having. Are those thoughts advancing you to your longer-term goals? Finally, choose to speak or act in a way that does move you closer to those goals.

Maybe you had an awful sales call and would rather forget all about it but, if your goal is to become a more successful sales professional, choosing to revisit the call and identify where things went wrong is the better option. That choice leads to strategizing what you can do differently next time.

Part of embracing your new mindset is leaning into it even when things are going well. Valuing learning over knowing means that any situation can be a growth opportunity. After major wins, it’s still worth asking, “What didn’t go well?” so that you can make improvements to your process.

TAKE IT FROM THE TOP

Research by McKinsey in 2021 showed that developing psychological safety within an organization needs to start at the top. Employees are not going to feel comfortable admitting mistakes or challenging the status quo if they don’t see these kinds of behaviors modeled by team and organization leaders.

Unfortunately, several of the leadership skills most likely to create psychological safety within an organization are also those least commonly addressed in leadership development programs. For example, sponsorship—defined as enabling others’ success ahead of one’s own—promotes behavior that fosters psychological safety. Only 26 percent of respondents, however, reported that this skill was part of their leadership development programs. Similarly, situational humility, or being able to admit that you don’t have all the answers, is only covered in 36 percent of respondent’s leadership training.

If you lead an organization and want to develop psychologically safe teams that can truly learn from mistakes and innovate, leadership training focused on the necessary skills needs to be part of the equation. McKinsey is prescriptive in its call for more leadership training, explaining that one-off trainings are not going to cut it. They recommend deploying an at-scale program of leadership development and making it part of leaders’ day-to-day work.

THREE (NOT SO) EASY STEPS

Creating psychological safety is a process that can’t be enacted overnight, and to be truly successful requires a commitment from organizational leadership. But you have to start somewhere. If you are leading a team (or an organization), Edmondson recommends these three steps to get you moving in the right direction.

1. Set the stage. Psychological safety does not simply happen, even if you as a leader are modeling the best behaviors. Fear of mistakes and what team members might think if you have a different opinion are so strongly embedded that leaders need to explicitly tell others what is expected and needed.
   
   Expectations need to be set. Let people know that there will be failure. Let people know that you are one of the individuals who will fail and that you are relying on the team to speak up with suggestions and ideas.
   
   Simply telling people that they need to speak up is not enough. They need to understand why they need to speak up. What are you as a team hoping to accomplish? What are you wanting to improve and why does it matter that everyone’s voice is heard?
   
2. Invite participation. This is where situational humility comes in. Acknowledge where there are gaps in knowledge. Ask your team questions to prompt input and actively listen to what they have to say.
   
   In order for this kind of input from your team to become the new normal, processes need to be established. Set up a framework in which people can provide ideas on an ongoing basis. These could take the form of forums, or it could be as simple as making a “What didn’t go well?” debrief a normal part of every deal wrap-up, whether it’s closed lost or closed won.
   
3. Respond productively. When someone on your team takes a risk and speaks out, express your appreciation and listen to them. Make failure and the discussion of failure a normal part of meetings and interactions. As a leader, you’ll need to model this first, so be prepared to discuss your own mistakes and knowledge gaps.

Nothing about creating psychological safety within your organization or on your team is one-and-done. It’s an ongoing effort for everyone that requires frameworks and leadership training. No matter how much you make discussing mistakes a normal part of your process, that doesn’t mean it will become easy for people.

The difficulty of facing mistakes and speaking up is what makes “setting the stage” a critical step in fostering psychological safety. Edmondson writes that part of stage setting is framing the work that’s expected. But it may also be necessary to frame psychological safety itself.

Edmondson disagrees with those who refer to psychological safety as a “hygiene factor.” This implies that it’s a baseline trait every company must have—a basic expectation. This diminishes psychological safety, which Edmondson considers to be a competitive advantage rather than table stakes. When employees understand its purpose, they will be more likely to want to participate in building it.

Part of psychological safety and learning from error is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s in those uncomfortable moments that you’ll need to remind your team and yourself that you value learning over knowing. You will make mistakes along the way, and then you’ll have to openly admit and discuss those mistakes with your team. That’s how you’ll know you’re doing it right.

Ask us about our Revenue Acceleration as a Service program if you’re interested in team coaching, training, and quick results. Reach out at mastery@maestrogroup.co.