Learning How to Fail

We’ve all failed before. We all know it’s not about how many times you fall but how many times you get back up. But what’s your default response to failure? If you’re like me, you probably try to make excuses or find some obstacle that was out of your control to blame for the failure. My team recently failed—we delivered a presentation below our standard—and it was my fault. I didn’t take enough control of the planning process, I failed to schedule rehearsals, and ultimately, I allowed my team to deliver a subpar product. Learning how to fail the right way will unlock your mindset and help you grow through your mistakes.

Dan Campbell Interview

The video below shows Dan Campbell, head football coach for the Detroit Lions, speaking to the media immediately after his team was eliminated from the NFL playoffs. Dan’s response is a great leadership-in-action lesson for us all. Check out the video or scroll down to read my takeaways.

Lessons in Leadership

No Excuses

Not once in this entire clip do we hear Dan Campbell make an excuse. The thing is, Dan Campbell had a lot of obstacles stacked against him, even though the Lions had the best record in their conference. He could have blamed the bye week his team had, the injuries the team faced all year, or even the poor play of some of his players. The season ended in disappointment for the Lions—they were one of the top favorites to win the Super Bowl. But their leader took the failure with grace.

As leaders, we should be failing. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing. It’s how we respond that really makes the difference. And it’s the response leaders must focus on: accept the failure; don’t make excuses. Leaders are interested in moving forward from their failures, not avoiding them.

Process and Learn from Failure

Process and learn. That’s what true leaders do when faced with failure. In the video, Dan Campbell is asked to summarize the year and the team's success in the regular season. He refuses to do that in the moment. Instead, he tells the media that he needs time to process what happened, why it happened, and what went wrong so they can understand the situation and move forward to the next season. Sometimes, you have to let the dust settle. Great leaders have the patience to ruminate on their failures, learn why it happened, and make a plan to do better next time.

We shy away from processing failure because it’s frustrating. You don’t want to revisit the failure because it shows you how easy and close success actually was. Leaders must be able to separate the failure from the learning. Just as Dan mentions, you need to take time to process before you try to learn the lessons from your failure. Remember, don’t let fear keep you from evaluating your past failures.

Take Ownership

Not only did Dan Campbell avoid making excuses, he made sure to take the blame. It’s easy to skirt the blame and say we all need to improve. Dan didn’t take that route. Dan said, “It’s my fault. I didn’t have them ready.” He was acknowledging his responsibility as the leader of the team. He owns all the team’s failures and made multiple mentions of his ownership in the video at 3:28 and 5:55. Taking ownership is your responsibility as a leader.

Perhaps the hardest part of leadership is taking the heat for your team's actions. You’re the one accountable. The company relies on your team, and they depend on you to lead them. You have to be willing to take ownership of the failures. You can learn, improve, and move forward from failure, but you have to take ownership of the failure first.

Reflection

• No Excuses: Think about the last time you failed. Did you look around at what went wrong to try and find some explanation that absolves you from wrong? Try to focus on the situation by painting it objectively. You can say, “We failed, but we’re going to learn and improve.” It’s simple and shows that you aren’t in the business of making excuses for failure.

• Process and Learn from Failure: Just saying you will learn is not enough. You have to revisit the failure after taking time to process it. Ask yourself where you failed in planning, preparation, and/or execution. Use this exercise to clarify what you will do to improve. 

• Take Ownership: Above all else, take responsibility. Your team needs you to be the leader. Leaders take ownership of failures. Ask yourself: what could I have done differently as a leader to get a better result?

Summary

Failure is universal, but our response to it is not. You can become a victim of your situation or accept the failure and use it to improve. This past week, Dan Campbell showed us how to accept and learn from failure. Our immediate response to failure should be modeled after Dan’s actions. Leaders don’t make excuses; they take ownership of all failure and seek to learn from it.

Embrace your failures this week!

Rick