If you’ve read enough business books you know that a company’s environment is essential to its success. Companies that create an open-source, ideas-based environment tend to lead the way in innovation and productivity. Employees are more engaged in the company’s mission, the company is constantly benefiting from real-time, on-the-ground insights, and everyone goes home happy.
What we’re really acknowledging is that when people are free to fail, they’re also more likely to succeed. In fact, when we let people fail often, they tend to grow more valuable to an organization more quickly. The reality is that strong, motivated individuals are compelled by past mistakes to seek newer, better ways of benefiting the organization that believes in them. It’s empowering and comforting to know that you won’t be slapped for trying something. That creates loyalty and imagination.
What’s true in business is often true in life. A true principal is a true principal in any arena. We all walk around the world making mistakes large and small, and oftentimes it’s the pressure of feeling like we’re not entitled to such fallibility that prevents us from growing as people. Guilt and fear are restrictive, and you don’t need a boss around to feel that way.
When you believe that mistakes and failures are opportunities, not apocalyptic death sentences, you can get down to the more productive work of assessing those mistakes and changing. We only have one shot at a fantastic life. That life can be dominated by guilt, fear, and regret, or it can be a series of accomplishments. How we react to our personal and professional failures is the fundamental distinction between one fate and the other.
