Saturday 18 April 2015

Do you allow failure?

Being frightened of failure can be a motivating influence.  However it can also be a constraining factor causing people to 'play safe' and avoid risks.

Most change involves some risk - that things won't go to plan or as we expected.  But if we don't take those risks, we don't get the change - and the benefits it brings.

So you have to encourage your people to take a few risks - but managed risks.  We don't want our staff taking unplanned, unmeasured and unmitigated risks with our resources, our business.  So we have to train them to assess the risk - and to ensure they know how to recognise when all is not going to plan-  and what to do  about it.

Sometimes they will get this wrong - and we get a failure.  But if we have the right mix of risks - and especially the right mix of people - then our successful risks should far outweigh our failures.

As they say.... "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!"

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