‘Oooh, not too much … no, not like that … this way … careful not to drop it … make sure we don’t lose this one … that will cost you your job if you get it wrong … that’s too risky so better play it safe … make sure you don’t forget to tell him … but what if I forget the words … and if the music doesn’t play, I’ll look really silly …’.

Convincing ourselves and others that it is best to get it right each time will come at the ultimate price: a lack of daring, stifled creativity and the delivery of something mindnumbingly ordinary!

‘Failure is good. Big failure is better. Big, ignominious failure in front of a lot of people is the best.’

Erik Kessels

I love that quote! I am sure that it may well send a few shudders through you. It’s pretty bold. It also gives a strong insight into the attitude of Erik Kessels and how he runs his own business. Erik set up an über-cool ad agency in Amsterdam and now has offices in LA and London. His business is founded on the notion of daring to make mistakes. In fact, he goes one step further than that and actively encourages the art of making mistakes, believing that mistakes open the doors to new opportunities. He even runs workshops on the principles of ‘Forced Errors’ – facilitating ways to actively make mistakes. How cool is that?!

You can be forgiven for thinking that both myself and Erik have completely lost our minds. To many, it does indeed appear that way.

I’ll let you into a secret. When I had greatest mastery of being a perfectionist – or when the perfection had the greatest mastery over me – I spent many hours asking myself one question:

‘What if I fail?!’

Have you ever asked yourself that … on constant repeat?

If rehearsed enough, this can become one of the most disabling and destructive questions you can ask. Mine ran on auto play – it just kept on looping round and round. The more I asked it, the more I managed to embellish my own answer and create a mini Armageddon in my head. The consequence being that I managed to talk myself out of doing anything new and ensuring that my courage and bravery to push at the edges was redundant. I made the perceived risk seem so big, that I became paralysed and this resulted in me deciding that ok was, after all, ok. In fact ok was just ordinary.

Most of the Jolts are to help you change habits and ask the uncomfortable questions that provoke you to choose a different way. You will soon start to become even better at choosing between the habits that are working and the ones that are old school. Having that gut feeling that prompts you to ask the question ‘What if I fail?’ can be a useful voice to listen to, but NOT if it is the only question you ask – NOT if it is dominant and NOT if it is no longer asked by choice, but simply runs as the default question.

I actually believe that the answer to the question in hand is very simple.

‘What if I fail?’

The answer?

You will!

Yep, that’s right, you will. You will screw it up, you will make a mistake and you will sing plenty of bum notes along the way.

There is a much healthier and progressive place to put your attention and energy. Once you have asked yourself the question and listened to the answer, move onto something more liberating and ask yourself this:

‘Once I have failed and got it wrong, what will I do next to get 1° closer to extraordinary?’

You see the thing is, once you have failed and ONLY once you have failed will you open the possibility for an outcome that could rock the world. Getting it wrong will deliver you vast insight and knowledge that, in most instances, will only be visible once you have danced with failure.

‘Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.’

Tom Peters

Some intelligence and thinking is required here. As a leader you have responsibility to make decisions that enhance and grow the business – a massive part of that is the courage to get things wrong and the bravery needed to allow others to do the same.

You also have a moral obligation to make the right decisions in alignment with the culture and ethos of the organization. Having a ‘who gives a s**t if I fail’ attitude is not a get out of jail card that encourages illegal or morally wrong decisions to be made.

Daring to fail requires resilience. Let’s face it, many of the things that you test out will not work in the way that you had planned. I’m sorry to have to tell you that. You will get something and perhaps it will be a long way off from what you wanted.

The words, ‘Go on, I dare you to screw it up’ seem to trickle out of my mouth on a fairly regular basis. If I’m working with a leadership team, some feathers are ruffled to start with. The immediate reaction from a few will be: ‘Ha, what does he know about our business – there’s no space for us to fail.’ And that is a part of the problem. Once a belief has become fixed like that, it becomes a part of the day-to-day story and language. However, after these comments are shared around, it doesn’t take long before a very different mood goes viral. People start to see others daring. They notice that a few others in the room are testing out ideas, getting it wrong, receiving feedback, rallying together to find the next way and then forging ahead. Importantly, they see that their performance improves as a result of screwing up.

Before you know it, this new mood will go viral.

Organizations will stagnate unless the hunger for learning and the daring to fail ticks away consistently at both the THINKING and ACTION level. Even a 1° lean towards some conscious daring will make a significant difference.