Everyone fails at some point – what sets successful leaders apart is the ability to take that experience, learn from it, and move on.
Yesterday I commented on a LinkedIn post by Alex Panousis. She asked, as a business leader how you respond to loss and failure in a way that you can take the learning from in. Noting that, like sports teams know that they don’t win every game, you don’t win every business pitch. How do you take the lessons from it?
I responded that one powerful tool for this is doing a retrospective of key activities. Considering what you discovered and what you still need to learn. Then deciding on actions to take next.
The secret sauce is that you can do a retrospective regardless of whether the outcome was a failure or success.
If you build it into normal running then it takes the sting out of the occasional failure. Failure and success become a part of the process.
It reminds me of Kipling’s words from the If poem. “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same”. These words are written over the entrance to the center court at Wimbledon. Even champions need the reminder!
With building in retrospectives as part of your learning process, you can be sure that no matter what happens, you’ll emerge stronger than before. You gain knowledge and understanding that will help guide your decisions going forward.
So even if your plan goes sideways – or worse yet crashes completely – you have something positive coming out of it each time anyway.
And when your plans go well you gain from the confirmation of the success. Helping you to do the things that help you continue succeeding.
Try building in retrospectives as part of your learning process today! Take the opportunity now to discover new insights. It will make all the difference when it comes to handling future challenges like a pro.
