Blogs

Failure can be success turned inside out as well as a call to humanity! 1

Governance | Tesse Akpeki | 2 Jun 2010

Give ourselves permission to fail in order to succeed, says Tesse Akpeki, defending her suggestion of failure forums. 

Since I posted my last blog I have been receiving interesting phone calls. "What do you mean Tesse by advocating failure forums? Is it an indication to celebrate mediocrity?"

"No," I respond. "The suggestion is a call to celebrate our humanness and our ability to learn, develop and respond to situations, events and embrace change, even when it is not particularly the change we expected or wanted."

Even the greatest geniuses of times gone by, like Albert Einstein, failed in so many of their attempts to innovate, before attaining the success they craved.   

High standards and attention to detail are truly commendable, but I think of the Abraham Lincoln who described his Gettysburg Address as a "flat failure". Perfectionists see opportunities to perform as opportunities to fail, so even when they do reach their goal there is no sense of accomplishment.

We are all imperfect – the truth is for any sense of joy we have to get used to it.

My message therefore is to give ourselves permission to fail in order to succeed. In the words of Henry Ford, "Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again more intelligently"!

Even though we may not be likely to excel initially, we should no be afraid to try. We may not get perfect results, but we are progressing by taking the first step.  

Other keys? I know I have had to lighten up and forgive myself when I get it wrong while extending the same grace to others. I recognise that the only mistake is truly the mistake of not learning from what happened and like a broken record repeating the same thing over and over again while expecting the results or outcome to be different.

Recognise this picture? Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is a hobglobin of small minds."

Set a time limit; say I am going to give this one hour and acknowledge that the great can be the enemy of the good.

Have reasonable expectations. Do your best and encourage others to do the same. Flaws and imperfections can determine uniqueness – features to be relished and embraced. After all you are human and mere mortals get it wrong sometimes. And guess what people do tend to get on better with others who are flesh and blood like them! 

Tweet

Who's Who: Tesse Akpeki