Have you ever see a toddler become a success learning how to use a spoon to feed themselves? It all starts with mistakes: Miss their mouth -> Spill, Closer to their mouth -> Spill, Spoon in the mouth -> Spill, Spoon in the mouth -> Success -> Success -> Success…Once the toddler perfects the method of using the spoon, they continue the same process with all current and new food. They forget the mistakes, and remember only how to be a success.
This is the same process we should follow in every new opportunity: Allow yourself to do it wrong before you learn how to do it right, then keep doing it right.
You have to try things that don’t work to find what does work. Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
This works for individuals and it works for teams. Leaders make the environment where their team can try new ways to find what works. When they do find what works, leaders focus on the success, not the mistakes that led them there. A large part of success comes from what you focus on. Since the leader sets the vision for achieving the purpose of the team, they also determine where the team will be focused. Bruce Lee once said, “What you habitually think largely determines what you ultimately become.”
The first company that launched the combo gas and convenience stores found that in their first year of operation more than half of the stores exceeded expectations while the rest fell short. The company assigned a team to analyze the results. They produced a list of all the reasons that the underperforming stores didn’t succeed. For the next year, the company focused on not making the mistakes on the underperforming store list. At the end of the second year, more than half of the stores fell short of expectations.
What happened? Why didn’t they improve?
They didn’t improve because the focus of the company was to avoid mistakes instead of achieving success. There were no celebrations of what did work, only reprimands for what didn’t. They didn’t know that the road to success is paved with mistakes.
