Get Motivated by Failure

In a recent seminar on being an agent of change, I was asked "How do you stay motivated to implement change when you have repeated failures?"

The answer comes from your approach to making changes, and what constitutes a failure.

First, the fact that you have entered the implementation stage and actually tried your idea puts you far above the vast number of managers who speculate, and suppose, and dream of what can be; but fail to take a chance, fail to try things out. You've avoided that failure.

Second, great inventors, innovators and problem solvers know that from each failed test comes information that brings us closer to successful implementation. If you learn nothing else from your failed test, you now know of something that won't work. Gaining that knowledge doesn't seem so much like a failure.

Third, in diagnosing a failed test, you may discover the information that leads to a stunning breakthrough, or at least moves you closer to the final answer. Gaining that knowledge certainly isn't a failure.

Ultimately, every business problem we face will be solved sooner or later. Solved by companies with people who think, ponder, postulate, try, fail, learn and try again. And companies that solve business problems tend to be leaders in their industries.

So, if you look at implementation test failures in the correct way, they are only failures when viewed in the light of a final answer. When viewed as a valuable stepping stone, failed tests are not failures at all.


About me: Dan Pelley is an educator specializing in management training and development programs for supervisors and other first-line managers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The issue recited above came from a participant in one of his "Thriving on Change" seminars.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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