Podcast Summary
Effective communication skills and learning from failures in business and life: Foster open communication to prevent business failures, learn from failures through iterative processes, and turn setbacks into opportunities for growth.
Effective communication skills and the ability to learn from failures are crucial in both business and personal life. The Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast, with over 43 million downloads and available every Tuesday, offers valuable insights from experts on various communication topics, including managing anxiety, taking risks, and harnessing nervous energy. In the business world, failures often occur when concerns go unvoiced or unheard, making it essential to foster an environment where concerns can be expressed openly. Amy Edmonson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, emphasizes that failure is a part of the process and can be learned from. Her book, "Right Kind of Wrong: Failure and Success in Business," provides insights into how companies and individuals can turn failures into opportunities for growth. By focusing on iterative and thoughtful processes, as well as open communication, we can learn to fail smartly and effectively.
Encouraging Speaking Up and Learning from Failures: Create a culture that values speaking up about concerns, embraces intelligent failures, and fosters honesty, agility, and calculated risk-taking.
Organizations and leaders should strive to create an environment where speaking up about concerns is encouraged, and failures, particularly intelligent failures, are seen as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks. Intelligent failures are experiments in new territory, pursued with proper preparation and a goal in mind, resulting in minimal waste of resources. Companies like Eli Lilly promote this mindset by embracing failure and learning from small setbacks. To fail well, organizations must foster honesty, agility, and a willingness to take calculated risks, even in the face of uncertainty.
Turning a failure into a lesson: Embrace failures, analyze data, and learn to prevent future mistakes. Acknowledge failures promptly and avoid magical thinking to save time and resources.
Embracing failures and learning from them is crucial for growth and success in any organization. At Eli Lilly, a failed clinical trial for a cancer drug named Alimta was turned into a valuable lesson. Despite the disappointment of the drug not working as hoped, a "failure party" was held to celebrate the hard work and prevent others from repeating the same mistake. An in-depth analysis of the data revealed that some patients had responded well due to a folic acid deficiency. By addressing this issue, the drug became successful. While not every failure will lead to such a positive outcome, taking the time to understand why a failure occurred increases the chances of future success. Additionally, acknowledging failures promptly and avoiding magical thinking can save time and resources.
Preventing Basic Failures: Avoiding Human Errors: Checklists and psychological safety are crucial in preventing basic failures caused by human error. Organizations should prioritize psychological safety to foster a culture of learning and improvement.
Organizations and individuals should strive to avoid basic failures, which are simple and preventable mistakes caused by human error. These failures, unlike intelligent failures, do not lead to innovation or growth. Instead, they can result in tragic consequences. To prevent basic failures, it's essential to avoid doing the same thing over and over when it's not working. Checklists can help ensure that critical tasks are completed correctly. Psychological safety, which allows for mistakes and encourages speaking up and asking for help, is crucial in preventing basic failures and fostering a culture of learning and improvement. Despite its importance, many organizations fail to prioritize psychological safety, leading to unnecessary risks and potential disasters.
Creating a safe environment for speaking up: Leaders can foster psychological safety by acknowledging uncertainty, inviting feedback, and implementing policies that encourage reporting without fear of blame or retaliation. Embracing the value of failure and learning from mistakes are crucial for success.
Psychological safety is essential for creating an environment where individuals feel comfortable speaking up, preventing and learning from failures. Leaders can foster psychological safety by acknowledging uncertainty, inviting feedback, and implementing policies that encourage reporting without fear of blame or retaliation. It's important to recognize the distinction between reporting issues and engaging in problematic behavior. Organizations that prioritize psychological safety enable their teams to learn from mistakes, adapt, and ultimately succeed. Silicon Valley's "fail fast, fail better" approach is an example of embracing the value of failure, but it doesn't mean tolerating reckless behavior. Instead, it's about creating a culture where people feel safe to share their experiences and learn from them.
Learning from failures: Embrace failure as a learning opportunity, analyze complex failures to extract valuable insights, and apply new knowledge to improve future attempts
The phrase "fail fast, fail often" should not be misunderstood as a scattershot approach to experimentation. Rather, it's an iterative and thoughtful process of trying new ideas, learning from failures, and applying new knowledge to improve future attempts. It's not about blindly trying everything and hoping something sticks, but rather a deliberate and scientific approach to learning. Complex failures, which can involve multiple factors and unforeseen circumstances, require a deeper analysis to understand the root causes and extract valuable insights. The goal is not to simply abandon failed projects, but to learn from them and apply the new knowledge to the next experiment.
Boeing 737 Max failures: Complex causes: Boeing's rush to compete with Airbus led to complex failures in the 737 Max, rooted in capacity issues, excess hurry, and a design that's more complicated than optimal. Investors must balance high-risk investments with safer ones and check for larger issues.
The Boeing 737 Max failures, both the tragic crashes in 2018 and 2019 and the more recent challenges, were not just caused by a few isolated issues, but a combination of internal and external factors. Boeing's management and board put themselves in a position of increasing the chances of complex failures, some of which were self-imposed, such as hurrying the development of a new plane to compete with Airbus. The root causes of these issues go deeper than just fixing the bolts. They stem from capacity problems in the plant, excess hurry, a design that's more complicated than optimal, and a mindset that focuses on fixing the immediate problem without addressing the larger issues. This is a common problem in many companies. As an investor, it's important to understand that taking on high-risk, potentially profitable investments requires balancing them out with safer investments. It's essential to check whether the problem is the problem or a symptom of a larger issue. Additionally, the concept of playing to win versus playing not to lose is crucial. While it's inevitable to lose sometimes, especially in risky investments, it's essential to maintain a mindset that focuses on the long-term success of the company rather than just avoiding losses.
Playing it safe in life could limit potential success: Fear of failure might prevent us from taking risks and pursuing opportunities for greater success, apply to various areas like jobs and investments
Playing it safe in various aspects of life, including investing, may lead to some success, but it could limit the potential for greater achievements. The fear of failure often pushes us towards making decisions that we're almost certain will succeed. However, this approach might prevent us from taking risks and pursuing opportunities that could lead to even greater success. This concept can be applied to various areas, such as athletics and job searches. For instance, settling for a job that seems certain, but not a stretch, might result in getting the job, but one might have missed out on an opportunity for a dream job. The Motley Fool reminds listeners that they should not base investment decisions solely on the podcast, and they will be off for President's Day and will return on Tuesday.
