In a previous post I spoke about how we celebrate failure at Deep Red Ink. Steve Case left a comment on this post, saying he can see the value of learning from failure, but *loving* failure, perhaps seemed a bit too much.

Steve’s comment inspired me to write about celebrating, no, loving failure. So here it is.

Failure is often, maybe too often, seen as undesirable, and rejected. We design our organizations so that failure is eliminated. I think it is counterproductive how much we, as a collective, detest failure!

Failure is a learning opportunity

Many of us think this way. We each need to test for ourselves how well we are able to learn.

The trap in viewing failure this way is that it is rationalized as a learning opportunity. It seems to me that this rationalization serves to avoid the negative emotions that go with failure. A sure sign of a rationalizing company (or person) is one that seems to believe that failure is a learning opportunity, but repeats the same failures again and again.

We’ve failed to fail well

Our inability to learn from failure comes about because, I think, we have “failed” to honor failure as a valid human experience, just as we honor success.

We validate success and the feelings that arise from success. By the same measure, we utterly invalidate and dishonor failure by rejecting or rationalizing the feelings it brings.

How is it possible to learn from failure, when we are so intolerant of it?

Tony said it simply

I am inspired by something, I believe, Tony Robbins said –

There are no failures. only actions and outcomes. If you don’t like the outcome, choose different actions.

Counterintuitively

I believe loving failure is possible and even necessary.

To love something is to engage with it, to see how it is beautiful just the way it is. Seeing beauty in something reveals its purpose. And it is in seeing the purpose of failure, we truly see the gifts that it brings us. Only when we have received its gifts, do we experience a profound appreciation and acceptance for failure.

Humanity disclaimer!

While I have a strong viewpoint on this, I acknowledge that I find engaging fully with failure is a difficult task, one that I (and most people) have been ill-equipped by life to handle. Modern education and societal beliefs largely lack the philosophical foundations that allow us to have an expanded view of life, a view that allows us to see success and failure are equals.

My only caution is that we do not call this expanded view of life idealistic or impractical, only because we don’t know how to have it.

It is my constant striving to give myself this expanded worldview, and bring it to life in the organization that I am building with my partners.

One process that helped me expand

Is to ask myself, why is this failure good for me, and come up with as many answers as I can. It’s surprising how many answers there can be!

I once came up with fifty reasons why a failure was good for me. Once I got past the first few answers (those are always difficult), I experienced my skepticism turn into amazement, then into acceptance, and finally i into gratitude for the failure. In this state of gratitude, I realized that I valued this failure deeply, and was ready to receive its gifts.

This process is inspired by Dr. John DeMartini’s Breakthrough Experience. If you have not heard of this brilliant, brilliant man, I highly recommend his work.

Start a conversation

If you resonate with my thoughts or see things another way, please comment. I hope to engage in conversation that will be clarifying and enriching for both of us.

Building a great organization requires me to be a hypocrite.

I must set standards of thought, word and action that seem crazy even to me. Even so, I insist that my partners and team embrace these standards, live by them, measure themselves by them, and grow towards them.

Even if I am not able to right now.

Truly worthwhile dreams demand me to be the absolute best I can be.

Truly worthwhile dreams cannot be achieved by the same “me”, who had the dream. Such dreams change, no!, transform me on their way to coming true.

I believe when one follows a dream, one must think, speak and do as one wants to be. Not as one is today. If that makes me a hypocrite, call me a hypocrite anytime. Just make sure you say it to my face, because I love being complimented.

BOTTOMLINE

If you are a leader, and believe strongly in practicing what is preached, you are very likely discouraging yourself and your people from dreaming a better future for your company. Encourage hypocrisy. Speak like the person you want to be. Even if you are really bad at being that person today.

TALK TO ME

Has hypocrisy ever helped you grow? Let me know in the comments section below.

Most business owners have experienced that talented and passionate people are really becoming hard to find, and harder to retain. Especially in a startup.

Our startup offers consulting services. We are not making the next big product which will rake in the money. We are not funded externally. In our startup, we are building a business the old-fashioned way, client by client, project by project, paycheck by paycheck, and there are good days and bad days.

The good days are great; projects hum along, clients smile, payments are on time, and we are gushing! The bad days? Well, you know that story; not enough work, delayed payments, unhappy clients, and employees who feel lost.

 A RECENT ROUGH PHASE AND ITS LEARNINGS

In January we found ourselves in a situation where some payments were delayed, delaying salaries. We tried to solve this at the partner level, and came up with several ideas; pay the employees and partners can forego their salary; find new business immediately; and the one we chose, to openly discuss the issue with the team.

Our team has always been highly engaged in decision making within the company, and when we spoke to them about the situation, transparently and a win-win attitude, it was collectively decided that people who really needed money immediately were paid first, while others waited by choice. As a result some employees were paid and some weren’t. Some partners were paid and some weren’t.

This solution worked for us because we mutually decided what was fair. We chose to prioritize individual needs over seniority or designation.

THE LEARNINGS

When management is willing to wear both hats – of self and organization – when making a decision, employees are willing to wear both hats too.

The key to creating a 2 hat culture is to include the team in important decisions that affect them, Use an approach of open conversation, transparency, a win-win attitude, and co-creative problem solving.

A lot of credit to my partners Sashank (@svsashank on twitter) and Deepti (@deeptirupani) for experimenting with their leadership of Dot Now Social.

We are experimenting with a different type of goal setting at our two year old company. We don’t set goals for our team. Of course, our clients ask us for measurable results, and in our contracts, we sign up to achieve goals. At the same time, we believe when we perform well, we can achieve those goals and surpass them. So we try to focus on performing well one day at a time. 

We believe that people put in their best work when

1. we celebrate small wins and amplify the energy of achievement
2. we celebrate failures, and create opportunities for learning

We believe that goals draw too much attention into the future, and focusing on day to day performance allows us stay in the moment. Staying in the moment allows us to rapidly change strategy when things aren’t working, and more importantly, allows us to have a lot of fun at work!

I was reading Seth Godin’s post yesterday on marketing with authenticity, and it got me thinking about a project we’ve been involved in for the last year or so.

When we were asked by a prospective client, early in 2011, to “improve their online marketing”, we dug deeper. We asked what expectations they were setting in their marketing, and how well they were delivering on their promises.

They had a five member marketing team, and their advertising was being handled by the best agency in town, and as a result, they were talking a good game. Their two-member customer service department was inundated with irate calls from customers who didn’t get what the advertising promised them. No surprises here.

We told the client that better online marketing wasn’t the answer.

Better customer satisfaction was. And until they had setup their organization to make careful promises, and follow up with committed delivery, online marketing was very likely to hurt their brand.

So, here’s what happened next.

What was meant to be a social media marketing engagement turned into an organization development assignment. We spent more than six months helping the client create an organization that could market with integrity. We helped them find a new head of marketing, we helped them integrate marketing and customer support, and we audited all marketing campaigns for authenticity from an objective outsider view.

And a year later, the rewards are pouring in.

Our client has (we think) the best Facebook page in the industry, where they engage with customers and prospective customers authentically.  Customer complaints are dealt with efficiently, and we regularly see negative comments transformed into positive customer experiences.

In an industry, which has largely been oblivious to the power of the internet, our client has a huge first-mover’s advantage because their organization is now set up to market themselves online.

Bottomline

Before you start your organization off on an enthusiastic social media marketing campaign, you will benefit by asking if you are setup to engage in a two-way conversation with your customers. In a very public forum.

“Consciousness based business is no longer only for the visionaries and ethical entrepreneurs; it is the absolute evolutionary necessity for humanity to survive. We cannot deny the calling, nor are we allowed to.”

- one of our clients, speaking passionately about creating business models that generate profit and social wealth

People or performance? Freedom or discipline? Family or work? Me or you?

The mind is built to focus on one thing at a time, and in any given moment it’s natural to pay more attention to one of the two even when we believe both to be critical.

The heart is built to defy logic, and wants both. Purpose and profit. People and performance. Freedom and discipline. Family and work. Me and you.

For those who want to pursue excellence, inner and outer, it may be the most important skill to learn – to hold and embrace paradoxes; to learn to live within the tension created by opposites, seeking always to keep the tension alive.

It’s the way to have the best of both worlds. It’s possible.