How We Respond to Failure Matters

​A healthy organization does a better job of solving and preventing problems. One of the best ways to measure the health of an organization is to look at how it responds to failure. When a strain is placed on an organization, its ability to be proactive, flexible, and achieve better solutions says everything about how successful the organization will be. Consider some concepts that I think are key attributes of a healthy organization.
 
An organization that fails well:
 

• Understands that human error is normal and predictable.
• Understands that the organization shares the responsibility for failures.
• Succeeds as a team and fails as a team.
• Seeks to understand the mistakes and learn from failures before trying to fix them.
• Looks at the organizational context surrounding a failure for opportunities to understand what happened and how to improve.
• Does not allow one person or department to shoulder the entire responsibility for a failure or mistake.
• Does not ignore problems out of fear of making people feel bad.
• Encourages and thanks team members who speak up when there is a problem.
• Does not hesitate to support employees that need more help to be successful.
• Is introspective about the messages that are sent to employees and supervisors and how they will be interpreted.
• Looks for ways to be resilient to human error.
• Does not blame and punish individuals that make mistakes.
• Does not use inadequate policies and documentation as an excuse for failure.
• Provides positive feedback to employees and supervisors when things go well.
• Does not wait for a failure to provide constructive feedback and is not afraid of tough conversations.

 
 
I hope there are some things here that can help you and your organizations. Some of these things take a lifetime to keep working on. It’s hard work, but it is worth it.
 
David Hanson, CSP

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