In response to Jillian Braverman’s recent post about learning more from mistakes than successes I committed to select some examples from my own career. The whole process was a good reminder about the benefits of reflective practice. Getting better at accepting personal fallibility is a reasonable defence against being careless, neglectful or just plain stupid.
It also helps to avoid the trap of ‘unconscious competency’ where a level of mastery and familiarity encourages repeating actions without conscious evaluation. I’m grateful to Andy Green for introducing me to the notion of ‘super-competency’ where someone who is highly accomplished in a discipline continually challenges and refreshes their skill. The best people never stop learning.
Some of the greatest creative forces in history have also pointed to the danger of believing excellence in a skill or a way of thinking is an end in itself. Picasso observed that, ‘It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.’ Leonardo da Vinci said that, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” Throughout their lives they were involved in a relentless search for improvement.
While few can match the creativity and inventiveness of these titans my small contribution here is three occasions when errors have held valuable lessons and changed my way of thinking.
CLARIFY THE BRIEF AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Late in the process of producing an Annual Report, I was asked by an HR Director to arrange a short version to be sent to all 70,000+ staff. Under time pressure and wanting to impress I re-drafted the text as a summary, re-purposed the existing visuals and got the design agency to do layout for free. I felt pretty good about having got the job done in budget and on-time.
But at final proof stage the HR Director said he had wanted something original and entirely focused on the employee audience. My annoyance at time and effort wasted was only exceeded by my embarrassment at failing to clarify the brief. Always understand the purpose and intended outcomes of a job before starting it and make sure that you have clarified the time and cost implications of any course of action.
Kipling is instructive:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
(“I keep six honest serving-men.” Rudyard Kipling. First published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1900)
It is also usually worth reminding budget-holders making late requests that the iron triangle comprising cost, speed and quality can usually only have two side fulfilled at the same time.
BEWARE HUBRIS AND LACK OF PREPARATION
One of my employer’s open-plan office culture led to the wearing of ‘red caps’ to indicate you were not to be disturbed. Local interest had me appearing on regional TV where, on the spur of the moment, I stated that we thought it was a great gift for the upcoming Father’s Day. Slightly carried away by my own cleverness I said that we’d be selling them in one of our local stores that Saturday.
The scramble to source red caps, at anything like a reasonable cost, involved the whole team for the next two days. Particularly when I decided that they needed to have a big D, for Dad, emblazoned on them. But I took delivery of the caps late one night and found myself in a nearby store early the next morning.
Given a prime spot near the entrance and alongside the clothing section I was confident that I would be sold out and back home by noon. 12 hours later I had not sold one, despite the asking price plummeting from a fiver (which was at cost) to 50p. I could not bring myself to just give them away but had learnt many lessons.
Making a claim without thinking it through is not a good place to start. Compounding the situation by adding specifications, something akin to ‘mission drift’, is equally unwise. But most importantly I learnt at first hand and on my own time how hard it is to make money by selling things. It was an early step on a long road from being in public relations to leading a £100m turnover commercial organisation.
MUTUAL APPRECIATION AND ENTHUSIASM ARE RARELY ENOUGH
After several years in one job I was slightly restless and applying for anything that looked interesting. When the call came it was welcome, the process rapid and it felt like love at first sight. The lure of global opportunity and building a team from a low base seemed too good to miss.
Sadly, I had missed that what attracted the company to me were things I had done earlier in my career but were not my intended direction of development. An early visit to the parent company disabused me of my belief that I would be able to spread my wings internationally. And the ‘low base’ was destined to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
In relationships it is in the interests of both parties to temper good rapport with critical thinking. I was flattered by the attention and I did not ask enough questions to understand their situation. As importantly, I was not wholly transparent about my expectations.
Whether it’s a new job, a business partner or a personal friend there is not enough goodwill or money in the world to make it work long term unless aspirations, values and practicalities are honestly shared. And you have to be prepared to walk away however much you like people and want things to work out.
*****
Mistakes are part of learning and it is reasonable to expect that if you are pushing hard and on the edges of your ability or experience you will make more of them. As long as you have not staked what you or your company cannot afford to lose, every error brings insight and few are terminal. It’s always good advice to believe that what matters is what you do next.