Thursday, November 3, 2022

FAILfaire :- Reframing How We Perceive & Receive Failure.

Generally, there's nobody who wants to be associated with failure. That is why you will find in some workplaces the top leadership will make all efforts to disassociate themselves from any form of failure. 

On the other hand, if they don't blame it on anyone or department they would rather paint a merry picture of success even when failure is at the center of everything. 

 In schools and some workplaces we are also trained to avoid failure at all cost which sometimes comes in the form of warnings, for example, if you fail count yourself fired, out and so on. I would rather change the conversation to, do your research and plan well and execute. If failure happens don't be ashamed to document and learn from every step. 

Incase you are running a start up, there is this phrase or philosophy, (FF) Fail Fast, meaning get all the important lessons from the earliest stage to gain momentum and stability towards the next phase.

Anyway, I came to learn, in some cases, failure is inevitable and it is a great way to prepare for the big wins only if you are keen to pick the lessons at every stage with an open mind and attitude. The fact is, you will never come across any monument erected at any place to celebrate people who tried and failed nor will you find any award in the same category. 

 In any contest people only remember the winners. As time goes the first runners up also fades slowly hence the need to be winners at all times. 
 "Our journey to success is closely connected to many things, and failure is part of it." - Wilson Masaka, Youth Advocate and Social Entrepreneur 
"Failing doesn't necessarily mean you didn't plan, that is why we need to reframe our thinking, perception and reception about failure. " - Wilson Masaka, Youth Advocate Social Entrepreneur 

Failure might have happened because of some unknown situations that took precedence in what you had planned to do that are linked to external environment beyond your control for example the COVID-19 pandemic is a classical example.

To achieve our optimum impact as organisations we should embrace failure as part of the process and allocate quality time to document all the failures that might have happened during a certain period (Failfaire). The only part I can't buy is when failure is made deliberate by not doing what is required. Many organisations are found of creating layers of strategic plans, one after the other without taking a deep dive into the failures that would help them generate new ways of thinking before creating new strategies.

Below Are Five Reasons Why We Should Have a FAILfaire in Our Organisations.

 Here we go... 

 1. Failure creates room for alternatives ways of doing the same thing in a different way (creativity & innovation). 

2. It encourages great performance than in a situation where it isn't embraced which leads to staff faking results. 

3. It helps an organisation understand better their S.W.O.T analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity & Threats). 

4. Create room for personal development and capacity building. Nobody is perfect and if you try you either win or fail and in between there's great learning. 

5. Open our mind to think of meaningful partnership to address the gaps. 


Picture credit https://unsplash.com/@reddalec

I hope starting today, you will plan and target to win and should failure happen, you will take a pause and documents the lessons with an open mind. 

We shouldn't deliberately let things fall apart or encourage failing. We should always strive to recognise failure as part of the things that are bound to happen even after great plans. 

In case you're a youth led or a pro-youth institution part of what I train is organisational culture and documenting failure (this is a new area in many organisations) as one of the subtopics. 

 

Get in touch Do More / Be More / Be Different www.wilsenx.blogspot.com

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