How do you react when you fail? Have you ever wished that you could learn more quickly from your failures and move on? In this episode, GLS Executive Producer Lori Hermann sits down with CEO, executive coach and best–selling author Ryan Leak to hear how he learned more from his failures than he ever did from his successes. In their conversation, they discuss his documentary, “Chasing Failure,” and how failure became the best teacher throughout his life.
IN THIS EPISODE
What was the story behind Ryan’s documentary, “Chasing Failure”?
How was the experience of chasing failure different from planning the documentary?
How did he end up working with the Dallas Mavericks?
What does Ryan really like to teach on?
What legacy would Ryan like to leave?
From his perspective, what is the biggest challenge that leaders are currently facing?
Failures can help people more than any kind of success.
People admire perfection from a distance, but they cannot relate to it, so it’s important for leaders to reveal what’s behind the scenes.
Getting things wrong is just a part of the journey, so keep putting yourself out there: keep posting, keep, leading, keep trying new things.
If you make what you’re doing always about others, it takes the pressure off.
It’s difficult to lead effectively, and to keep growing, when your marriage isn’t well.
Ask every person that serves you, “Is there anything going on in your life that I could pray for?”
Don’t take change personally. Everyone is going through it.
Though leading through change is difficult, it’s actually more challenging to follow through change. Leaders can help their organizations by being empathetic to what “front-line” employees are going through as change happens.
Organizations respond positively when they believe that their strategic leaders are available to them.
During seasons of change, try to not make decisions in a vacuum.
As a leader, cultivate trust through an atmosphere of caring. Then, even if someone does not agree with a decision, they are more likely to support the decision.
Are you a leader who wants to help your team learn to risk more and fail well? In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Amy C. Edmondson sits down with our Jason Jaggard to unpack her research behind her latest book, The Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well. Their conversation includes the difference between a mistake and a failure, the 3 categories of failures, and how to encourage a team to experiment and learn quickly.
IN THIS EPISODE
What is Amy’s background, and what was her path to being a professor at Harvard Business School?
How do you define “psychological safety”?
How do we overcome our tendency to be blind to our own shortcomings?
High performing teams do not make more mistakes; they are simply more willing to report them.
Psychological safety is NOT “being comfortable.” It’s feeling permission for candor and making mistakes.
“Safety” does not mean “the absence of risk or danger,” but the willingness to risk.
In a changing world, our ability to learn together is mission critical.
There is a difference between a mistake and failure. A mistake is a unintentional deviation from a known practice; a failure is simply an undesired result.
All failure is not equal. There are (a) basic failures; (b) complex failures; and (c) intelligent failures.
An intelligent failure is: an undesired result of a thoughtful foray into new territory. It’s also as small as possible.
Always choose learning over “knowing”.
In a situation that’s brand new for your team, it’s important for a leader to:
Acknowledge that it’s brand new
Encourage team to experiment (and learn) quickly
If you’re leading someone who is a high performer but working in a new context, encourage them to (a) aim high; (b) team up; (c) fail well; (d) learn fast; and repeat.
For leaders, there’s no avoiding failure; it just comes with the territory. However, how leaders respond when things don’t go as planned—how they lead through failure—is absolutely critical. This month, we are going to focus on ways that leaders can lead through failure and turn potential disappointment into powerful lessons for growth and renewal. In this episode, GLN President and CEO, David Ashcraft, shares stories of times when things did not go as planned, and how he has learned to “fail well” over time.
IN THIS EPISODE:
When is a time that David had a project or idea that he was passionate about, but that did not turn out the way he wanted?
How can you move through discouragement over the results to a posture of learning?
Does David see himself as a perfectionist?
How can you build a culture of candor in a team?
If you tend to be a people pleaser, what can you do to start receiving feedback more productively?
If you’re going to experiment, be aware of how bad the consequences could be, and calculate accordingly.
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