The Manager 157 - Failing fast isn't the point
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"The Manager" Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you are doing safe and well.
It was my first day back in an office for nearly two years this week. What a shock to my system. It was unusual and tiring but strangely enjoyable. Putting a real face to a virtual face was good, the serendipity of bumping into people and building relationships was good too. I didn’t enjoy the commute but I did enjoy the sense of energy that came from having people busy working around me.
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Later this week I will be live at the EuroSTAR Conference doing a Q&A after my keynote (on communication and change) as well as an Ask Me Anything session on Thursday.
I will be posting the keynote video to my channel in a few weeks time also. It has proved a good business model to some extent. Organisers want a talk and I have a list of videos I want to make…works out nicely.
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This week I’ve been mostly pondering failure.
I’ve failed with a lot of projects I’ve launched. I’ve failed with many aspects of my life. I’ve failed in various roles. Many of the initiatives I’ve launched at work have failed.
But just because something fails, doesn’t mean it’s useless. It doesn’t mean YOU’RE a failure. It doesn’t mean you didn’t learn something.
Failures and mistakes are an opportunity to make yourself and the business better.
The fact you’re trying something new comes with the risk that it may fail. What’s the alternative? You know everything? You play it steady? You remain average as a company? You don’t grow? You follow everyone else?
However, I will say that some failures are more catastrophic than others. Some failures could ruin your career. Some could bring down a company.
Failing fast isn’t the point (and I hear that Facebook meme at every conference on agility), surely the goal is not to fail at all? But if we do fail (and there is a high probability if we’re doing something new), then the goal is to fail carefully.
This is why planning is so important. It’s why understand the potential outcomes is so important. It’s why planning for the worst outcome is so important. It’s why planning to fail should be something we consider.
And also consider that some experiments aren’t quick. Some take time. The larger to potential failure, the slower and more carefully you should go.
So, whenever I launch a new initiative or project, I think it through carefully. What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best outcome? What have others done before that I could learn from? What will happen if we fail? How can we work to mitigate potential failure? What will we learn?
By taking the time to plan, we can help to reduce the impact of our failure.
Don’t fail fast. Simply try not to fail at all, but plan for if you do. And when you do fail, ensure you get better because of it.
Go forth and try something new….and potentially fail……carefully….and maybe slowly.
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Interesting Articles
I had some feedback from a reader who mentioned that it would be helpful if I included details of how long the read would be against each of the articles I link to. Good point and no doubt helpful. However, I have no idea how quickly other people read. I’ve always found it bewildering that some sites tell me how long it will take me to read it…so instead, I’m going to use --short --medium --long based roughly on how large I think each article is. Let me know if you think this is helpful.
The case for mindlessness rather than mindfulness. --medium
“But expertise research has also revealed that paying too much attention to what you’re doing can have damaging effects, particularly when you perform well-practiced skills. In fact, this is one reason why some experts appear to “choke under pressure”: they think too much about the mechanics of the task at hand.”
What would happen if you had all the questions rather than all the answers? Seth on point as usual. --supertinyshortarticle
Lovely interview on working with constraints. Some fruity language. --long
“…we have choices and we have constraints, and sometimes they’re more dire in terms of their injustice than others.”
Team building….I can’t stand the phrase. The best way to build a great team is to do that in the workplace, around the work you have, with good management and communication. Building rafts is not the same as dealing with the pressures, demands and constraints in work. However, I do love providing plenty of downtime for people to explore their shared interests. Despite many of the ideas in this article being “team build” like - there were some nuggets of usefulness. --medium
How organised people get so much done. --long
Best practices for hybrid meetings (remote and in-person) --long
Until next time
Rob..
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Rob..