Don’t Just Count Your Blessings…

My sister-in-law's mom, Ruth, died last week. She had been ill for some time and required 24/7 healthcare. She spent the last week of her life calling old friends and writing thank-you notes to those who had cared for her over the last several years. It seems to me that she died the way she lived – counting more than just her blessings.

Ruth's wonderful life teaches me that it is easy to be thankful when things go my way, but hard when people or circumstances fail to meet my expectations. Ruth wasn’t thankful just for her blessings, she was thankFULL for everything.

It is also easy to mourn someone with tears, but hard to honor them with action. This holiday season, I'll try to honor Ruth by practicing what she lived – being thankful all the time. Here are a few examples of “difficulties” for which I choose to be thankful:

1. Traffic

2. Dirty dishes

3. Tough times

1. Traffic
I hear people complaining about traffic and long commutes all the time. Of course, Los Angeles traffic bothers me too at times. Yet, it was those hours in traffic that drove me to turn my car into a rolling university 25 years ago when I worked for Siemens. I've listened to thousands of hours of educational audio programs during long commutes, traffic jams, and airport delays. I attribute a significant portion of my “success” to my dedication to lifelong learning… in my car and elsewhere. I invite you to check out www.teach12.com and learn from the best teachers in the world.

2. Dirty dishes
I used to hate washing dishes. My attitude changed one year when I realized that Ruth couldn't do the dishes because of her failing health. In that moment I decided that dirty dishes, especially during the holidays, represented an abundance of food, friends, and family. There are many who do not experience abundance during the holiday season. Those serving in our armed forces, suffering ill health, dying of hunger across the globe would do anything to wash dishes after a Thanksgiving meal with us. I encourage you to dirty a few extra dishes this holiday season by inviting someone who may have no place to go.

3. Tough times
The essence of growth is the management of anxiety during tough times. Nature, life, and research all teach us that hardship is critical to leadership. The ocean's reef is more spectacular on the side where the waves crash; those who fail to learn from difficulties are doomed to repeat them; eXtraordinary leaders understand that 70% of professional development occurs during challenging assignments.

Our challenging economy continues to cause anxiety in many hearts and homes. I too was anxious, especially at the start of the year after losing my largest (banking) client. I channeled my anxiety into positive energy by creating my new website (http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com/) and the eXpansive Leadership Model (XLM) assessment tool (http://xlmassessment.com/). I am very thankful that these have been instrumental in the upswing in my business this year. It may be a stretch to say I am “thankful” for tough times, but it’s not a stretch to say that I’m choosing to GROW through tough times instead of merely going through them.

The holidays begin by giving thanks. I'm thankful that Ruth touched my heart. I am thankful that she taught me to count all things, not just my blessings. How about you?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Click on the link below (or paste it into your browser) to read about how my research on 171,000 leaders:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

How Leaders Interview and Hire the Best

The cost of turnover for a typical employee is between 48 percent and 61 percent of the employee’s salary, as discussed in a previous blog ( http://davejensenonleadership.blogspot.com/2009/06/six-hiring-mistakes-good-leaders-make.html ). In that blog, I also revealed the six most common mistakes leaders make during the interviewing and hiring process. These errors are why an average of 50% of all new hires leave during the first seven months. Let us now turn our attention to avoiding these mistakes and hiring the best fit for the job.

The eXpansive Leadership Method (XLM) is a tool to help you interview and hire well. As seen below, you can use the XLM to frame your approach to the hiring process. Adapt this process to suit your environment to hire better candidates, improve productivity, lower turnover, and decrease costs. If you’d like to read how to execute each step, click the link below or paste it in to your browser:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/HowLeadersInterviewandtheBestfortheJob.html

Apply the XLM to Interview and Hire the Best

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com

How Leaders Use a Setback as Feedback

Every leader experiences obstacles and setbacks. Yet few know how to manage them well. In fact, leaders rarely speak about difficulties. We are taught to have a positive mental attitude, be upbeat, wipe off the dust and grit of the journey and move on. It’s fine to put a positive spin on a negative event. Yet too much spin makes us dizzy, especially if there are lessons to be learned from the obstacle. A setback is often a teacher dressed in pain if you have a method of learning from it. The most effective leaders think of a setback as feedback waiting for meaning.

I encourage you to adapt the following four-step approach to extract your lessons when you and your team encounter “negative” feedback while pursuing your goal.

1. Don't just do something, sit there.

In his book, The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton writes about the agonizing experience of watching his father die of cancer. (1) He says he learned the most powerful lesson about pain - the only way through the pain is through the pain. Having lost my mother to the same disease, I think Merton is right - the first step in dealing with a setback is to step back and let the pain have its way with you. In time, you will be ready to move on. But first, you must mourn. Your soul needs to be with the pain of loss before you can get over that loss. The amount of recovery time should be proportional to the value you placed on the loss or setback. I often took a day to sulk after losing sales orders that meant a lot to me. It doesn’t really matter what you do with your recovery time, only that you take it.

The Christian religion teaches that Christ rose from the dead after being crucified. However, he only ascended after he spent three days in a sealed cave. Whether you believe in the teaching or not, think of his three days in the darkness as a metaphor for what we all need to do when we experience loss. We need time in the darkness, time to be still, time to reflect. It’s easier to see our light at night because contrast is how we see. Your cave is the start of your re-birth, your “resurrection.”

2. Write for insight.

Intuition isn’t easily heard amid the clamoring noise of work. Your still, small voice may have something to whisper in the silence. I encourage you to write to gain insight about your setback. First thing in the morning, write three pages of nonstop, brain dump. Don’t think, don’t process, and don’t force anything. Just write three pages of fast, flash, first thoughts. Let your inner voice have a voice. Don’t worry about what spills out. You need an outlet for what may be seething below the surface. Have faith you will hear what you need to hear. Here are a few incomplete sentences to jump-start your writing:

• This hurts...
• In my darkest hour...
• The pain of birth teaches...
• I have grown through adversity by...
• Lessons I have learned the hard way...

3. Lessons learned report

After grieving and reflecting on a setback, it’s time to concentrate on what you learned and will do differently. Obstacles and setbacks can be learning experiences if you choose to look for meaning. The attribution theory in psychology teaches us that making meaning out of what happened in the past influences the future. Therefore, within a week of your setback write a brief report on the lessons learned. A quick way to do this is to take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line right down the middle. Title the left column, Went Well. Title the right column, Do Differently. Next, brainstorm a list of all the things you feel went well as you pursued your goal (on the left side). Then write a list of all the things that you will do differently on the right side. What will you do more or less of? What could you do better next time? Just brainstorm and let your ideas flow. The whole purpose of this step is to direct your attention on how to use the lessons of this experience to help in the future. We don’t learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience. Feedback is only feed forward when we learn.

4. Choose happiness.

People behave in ways they believe will increase their happiness. The formula below, fully explained in a previous blog, is a simple equation that predicts how happy leaders are after any setback.

Happiness = Experience - Expectations

This formula says that your level of happiness with any event or situation is equal to how you choose to perceive that experience minus your attachment to the expectations you had prior to the event. For example, think about the last time you were disappointed after seeing a movie. On a scale of 1 to 10, what score would you assign to the expectation you had prior to that experience? (Go ahead; pick a high number if you had high expectations.) Next, on a scale of 1 to 10, what score would you assign to the experience immediately after you had the experience? (Pick a low number if you thought the movie was lousy.) If you do the math (experience - expectations), you have your “happiness score.” If expectations were very high (a 9 on our scale) and your experience was low (a 3 on our scale), the number is negative. (3-9 = -6) If your subtraction gives you the number zero, the formula says you are satisfied. Your expectations were met. Whatever number you come up with, it represents how happy or satisfied you feel, overall, after any experience, event or situation.

If we want to be happy, this happiness formula teaches us to:

• Choose to have high expectations prior to any situation.
• Choose to see the good or positive lesson in every experience (or situation).
• Choose to let go of our expectations after the experience (or situation).

So, keep your expectations high as your pursue your goal. However, let go of these expectations when you encounter an obstacle or setback. Remember, a “negative” experience doesn’t make you miserable, your attachment to it does.

Use this four-step system described here to help you see any setback as feedback waiting for meaning. Take time off, lick your wounds, and learn your lessons from the pain. Then stop complaining, refocus on your goals, and get back in the saddle again. Let me know how this approach, or your own, works for you.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Merton T: The Seven Storey Mountain. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York, 82, 1948.

Commanding Leaders Choose Happiness

Aristotle said, “All things we do, we do to increase our happiness.” People behave in ways they believe will increase their happiness. The figure below is a simple formula that predicts how happy you are after any setback.

Happiness = Experience - Expectations

This formula says that your level of happiness with any event or situation is equal to how you perceive that experience minus your expectations prior to the event. For example, think about the last time you were disappointed after seeing a movie or dining out at a restaurant. On a scale of 1 to 10, what score would you assign to the expectation you had prior to that experience? (Go ahead; pick a high number if you had high expectations.) Next, on a scale of 1 to 10, what score would you assign to the experience immediately after you had the experience? (Pick a low number if you had a lousy experience.) If you do the math (experience - expectations), you have your “happiness score.” If expectations were very high (9 on our scale) and your experience was low (3 on our scale), the number is negative. (3-9 = -6) If your subtraction gives you the number zero, the formula says you are satisfied. Your expectations were met. Whatever number you come up with, it represents how happy or satisfied you feel, overall, after any event or situation.

Think of all the ways this formula plays out, subconsciously, every day: The sports team or athlete that is “expected” to win, but falls short. Or the underdog that delights the home crowd by far exceeding expectations by merely reaching the playoffs. How about freeway traffic? You’re breezing along at 65MPH, when all of a sudden, traffic comes to a complete stop. The radio informs you about the accident up ahead. You groan, Oh no! I am going to be late if we don’t start moving. So, you start praying for any movement. And your prayer works! You start moving, slowly at first. How do you feel when you start clicking along at 20, 30, then 40 MPH? Pretty good, right? Why? Because your expectations became so low when you were stuck in the logjam.

The happiness formula also reminds you to choose happiness even if you fall short of a goal. For example, I once collaborated on a very large sale with a sales colleague, Tina. If we booked it, we both would earn a big commission check. We lost it. Ouch! We were devastated. I mourned the loss by taking a couple days off and biking in the mountains. I then re-focused on my sales goals, and had a good year. But Tina never recovered. Whenever I saw her, she talked about the “big one that got away.” After two years of missing her quotas, she was fired.

Tina’s inability to choose responsibly (the fourth level of the commanding style) can explain by the happiness equation. Do you see how it predicts Tina’s misery? Prior to the sale, she had high expectations. (Let’s give her a score of 9 out of 10.) She then had the very negative experience of losing the sale. (A score of -9.) You do the math. (-9 - 9 = -18) No wonder she was miserable! I was too! However, she stayed miserable because of her inability to let go of high expectations and her ineffectiveness in learning from the experience. While she subconsciously stayed a minus 18 after the sale, I chose to let go of my expectations and learn my lessons.

Don’t let what happened Tina happen to you. Follow the system outlined here to put the happiness equation to work for you. Keep your expectations high as your pursue your goal. However, let go of these expectations when you encounter an obstacle or setback. Remember that a “negative” experience doesn’t make you miserable, your attachment to it does. Perhaps this is why Peter Drucker says we often fail because of what we hold onto. Best-selling author and lecturer Dr. Wayne Dyer observes that one of the traits he sees in highly functioning people is their uncanny ability to shut out the negative past. (1)

Try using the system described here to help you see any setback as feedback waiting for meaning. Take time off, lick your wounds, and learn your lessons from the pain. Then stop complaining, refocus on your goals, and get back in the saddle again.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Dyer W: Wisdom of the Ages. HarperCollins: New York, 242, 1998.

Effective Leaders Use Feedback to Stay On Track

The first three steps needed to achieve a worthy goal (and discussed in previous blogs) are set a SMART goal, gain commitment, and build belief with a plan. The fourth step is to use feedback to stay on track.

Webster’s Dictionary defines feedback as “the return to the point of origin of evaluative or corrective information.” Feedback surrounds us. A market-based economy works because consumers give continuous feedback to producers. (To buy or not to buy is the feedback question of capitalism.) Feedback is also a critical factor in the theory of evolution. Survival of the fittest is really the ability of a species to adapt to its changing environment (i.e., responding to the feedback from its surroundings). That's how they survive. Without feedback, we too would die. The human body incorporates thousands of feedback mechanisms that keep us alive. And using feedback to stay on track is also how extraordinary leaders thrive as they pursue their goals.

Feedback comes in many flavors. Obstacles, setbacks, and difficulties are forms of feedback. (If it was easy to achieve worthy goals, everyone would do it and the goal by definition, would be less valuable.) In addition, corrective information (from customers, bosses, peers…) is feedback used to monitor progress.

Think about the last time you received praise for a job well done. How did it affect the job you just completed? It didn’t, did it? Of course not. However, it may have influenced your next task. That’s because feedback is really feed forward. It affects future performance.

Of the 18 studies Professors Locke and Latham reviewed in their book, 17 reported that when feedback was combined with goal setting, it improved performance more than goal setting alone. (1)

Professors John Ivancevich and Timothy McMahon, from the University of Houston, studied 209 engineers over a nine-month period and found that goal setting plus feedback significantly improve performance measures related to costs, quality, and overall productivity. (2)

When Alan Dubinsky (College of Management at the Metropolitan State University) studied 174 medical salespeople, he and his co-researchers found that salespeople who were supervised by actively involved managers (i.e., they gave more feedback), performed better than those under a “hands-off” or “call-me-if-there’s-trouble” manager. (3) Not only was the performance better under the “hands-on” managers, the salespeople in this group also had greater job satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, and higher levels of commitment.

These researchers are not saying that leaders need to be in the employee’s face all the time. In fact, there’s evidence that says the amount of feedback managers dispense should be adjusted to the individual needs of each person. (4) Star performers need less input than the struggling employees do, for example. The research is telling us is to use regular feedback, adjusted for the individual, to stay on track.

How surprised will you be when you and your team achieve your goal because you used feedback to stay on track? Let me know how you currently use feedback.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Locke E and Latham G: A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, 192, 1990.

2. John Ivancevich and Timothy McMahon; is The Effects of Goal setting, External Feedback, and Self Generated Feedback on Outcome Variables: A Field Experiment, Academy of Management Journal, June, 1982, page 359 - 372.

3. Dubinsky A, Yammarino F, Jolson M, et al: Closeness of Supervision and Salesperson Work Outcomes: An Alternative Perspective. Journal of Business Research 29: 225-237, 1994.

4. DelVecchio S: Predicting Sales Manager Control: A Comparison of Control Systems and Leadership Approaches. Journal of Applied Business Research 12 (4): 100-114, 1996.

How Leaders Choose Positive Questions in Negative Situations

“If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a noise?”

I believe that the answer is... NO! The noise is made when the sound waves strike the eardrums. The metaphor is that no matter what happens in the external environment, we can choose how we receive and process it. That’s the immaculate reception!

Think about it. If this were not true, everybody would be affected by every situation the same way. Without choice, we would be twigs in the river of life, victims of current circumstances. Top performing leaders understand that if they let negative circumstances dictate their daily actions, they are giving those circumstances control over them. Choosing to respond, and not react, to negativity reveals one of the deepest truths in leadership and life: It is in the receiving that meaning is made.

Between stimulus and response is a space called choice.

Steven Covey

How often do you hear questions like these around the office, home, or in your head?

1. Why can't our engineers get it right?
2. Where’s service when you need them?
3. Why can’t marketing give us what we need?
4. Who messed this up?

We all ask these questions at various times. It’s normal to be hard on ourselves for a short time, especially when we make mistakes. However, the problem with asking these “negative questions” for too long is that they lead to victim thinking. They suck us into the dark abyss of the “woe is me” mindset. Instead of helping us fix the problem or learn a lesson, negative questions seduce us into pointing fingers and assigning the blame. Asking negative questions limits our options, because like an ostrich with its head in the sand, our view of the world becomes limited. Negative questions may feel good in the moment, yet over the long haul, they leave us stuck in the muck because they don’t lead to productive action.

Optimists choose to ask “positive questions.” Positive questions focus on action and personal responsibility. Leaders who ask positive questions move themselves and others from victim thinking to meaningful activity. They encourage others to pull their head out of the sand, and see more options.

I like to keep a list of these positive questions with you (e.g., 3x5 index cards, appointment book, PDA, post-it-notes...) to review anytime you feel yourself slipping into the deep, dark abyss of sinking thinking. Here are several of my favorite “generic” positive questions I often ask:

- How critical will this seem five years from now?

- What does this irritation tell me about me?

- How can I see this differently?

- What’s my lesson in this “messin?”

- Who can help me deal with this?

- How can I let this go now?

- How can I shine my God-given talents in this darkness?

- What positive questions could I ask myself right now?

Choosing to ask these questions will help you and your team see your own light during the dark night. Choosing responsibly is the fourth key competency of a commanding leader because choice determines how well leaders handle failure, tackle adversity, and stay positive when things seem so negative.

Let me know how these ideas are helping you.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

The Top 10 Tips Leaders Use to Stay Motivated

I booked a keynote presentation (How to Stay Positive When Things Seem Negative) at an association meeting a while back. Here are my top ten tips to maintain personal motivation based on the research I did for that keynote. Let me know if you have any others.

1. Ask expansive questions (EQ’s). People who let negativity affect them often ask lousy questions (LQs), such as “Why does this always happen to me? Who screwed up this time? How come he’s not pulling his weight?” All these questions are legitimate AND lousy because they don’t lead to positive thoughts or actions. Expansive questions (EQs) are: “How can I make sure this doesn’t happen again? What can I learn from this? How can I ensure I pull my weight?” EQ’s focus on action we can take, instead of the blame game we can play. The more EQ’s we ask, the more we choose responsibility and better we feel.

2. Write S.M.A.R.T. goals and review them daily. We move in the direction of the dominant images we place, or let others place, in our minds. Goals keep you focused on the big picture.

3. Use positive affirmations and self-talk. Since we all talk to ourselves anyway, write a few of your favorite qualities on 3x5 index cards. Repeat them to yourself throughout the day, especially when sinking thinking elbows its way to center stage.

4. Listen to positive audio-programs in the car. Are you spending or investing your time in car?

5. Read positive books before you go to bed. Have something other than the nightly news dancing around your brain all night.

6. Spend more time with positive people. Spend less with those who are “optimistically challenged” or "negaholics."

7. Use the “secret complimentor” to increase your team’s or family’s look-for-good culture. People who look for good often find it.

8. Start your meetings or dinners with an uplifting story (e.g., Chicken Soup for the Soul) or humor.

9. Go for a short walk (i.e., 20 min.) walk with a loved one 3 times/week. Discuss only positive things.

10. Make a list of what you are thankful for once a month. Focus on what you have.

Which of these work for you now? Which one's should you try? Let me know how it goes.

Keep expanding,

Dave.

The Three Choices of Resilient Leaders

'The Rambo types are the first to die.'

Navy Seal

Choosing to manage failure well is critical to expand commanding leadership skills. Yet, it is insufficient. Every leader encounters significant adversity throughout his or her career. How they choose to confront these hardships greatly determines their success.

Do you know any leaders who have been struck down by adversity and struggled to get back on their feet? Benedict Arnold, a traitor during the American Revolution, comes to my mind. He was actually a brilliant general in the Continental Army until he was blindsided by injury and insult. He handled it by turning his back on his country. Contrast that approach with those who seem to handle tough times like a rubber ball, bouncing back in record time. Former President Jimmy Carter recovered from his devastating 1980 reelection loss to Ronald Reagan by building the Carter Center and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. What's the difference between these leaders?

Diane Coutu, senior editor at Harvard Business Review, has studied Holocaust survivors, resilient children, and business leaders who bounce back. (1) According to Coutu, the most resilient individuals choose to:

1. Accept of reality.

2. Value meaning.

3. Improvise.

1. Accept of reality. In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collin interviewed Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was held prisoner and tortured by the Vietcong for eight years. He asked Stockdale, "Who didn't make it out of the prisoner camps?" The leader responded, "Oh, that's easy, the optimists. They were the ones who said we are going to be out by Christmas. And then they said we'd be out by Easter, then the Fourth of July, then by Thanksgiving, and then it was Christmas again." Stockdale added, "They died of a broken heart." (2).

Commanding leaders choose responsibly by seeing reality the way it is and having faith that it will get better. That's what Collins calls the Stockdale paradox. The sun will come out, but probably not tomorrow.

This is the approach Gene Dimon chose to take when he was fired as president of Citigroup by then chairman Sandy Weill following 16 years of collaboration. Dimon scanned the already-prepared press releases and understood that the board agreed with Weill. He saw reality staring him in the face and walked out. A year and a half later, he took over the job of CEO at Bank One.

2. Value meaning. When we struggle, we try to make sense out of the struggle. We search for meaning. Coutu’s research shows that choosing a strong value system provides successful organizations and individuals meaning, especially during tough times. These values offer a way to interpret what is going on and how to act. Look how the self-serving values of the Benedict Arnold (e.g., arrogance, prideful, angry…) compare to the servant-leader values of Jimmy Carter (e.g., caring, compassionate, humanitarian…).

As an educator, one of my strong values is learning. So, when adversity strikes me, I search for meaningful lessons. I'll ask questions such as, What could I learn from this? How can this help me grow? How might this situation serve others?

3. Improvise. Leaders who thrive in adversity have options. The delivery company UPS considers improvisation a core skill. They empower their drivers to "do whatever it takes to deliver packages on time." This is exactly what they did one day after hurricane Andrew devastated southeast Florida in 1992. People were living in shelters and their cars because their homes had been reduced to rubble. Yet that didn’t stop the UPS drivers from delivering packages to these desperate, homeless people.

Laurence Gonzales concluded that versatility, the ability to perceive what's really happening and adapt to it, is critical to surviving life-threatening circumstances after he studied thousands who survived wilderness accidents. (3)

Which of these three can help you?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Diane Coutu; How Resilience Works, Harvard Business Review, May 2002, 46 - 55.

2. Jim Collins; Good to Great, HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2001, page 85.

3. Gonzalez L: Deep Survival - Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. W. W. Norton: New York, 2003, page 279.

Choose to Be a Failure-Tolerant Leader

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

Henry Ford

To choose responsibly is the critical value for a commanding leader because choice determines how well leaders manage adversity, setbacks, and failure. (1) Richard Farson and his colleagues studied a number of “failure-tolerant” leaders in business, politics, sports, and science. They reported that leaders such as Robert Shapiro, former CEO of Monsanto, were troubled to find that their organizational cultures had conditioned employees to view unsuccessful products or projects as personal failures. To encourage more of an experimentation mindset, which is essential for innovation, Shapiro and these other failure-tolerant leaders employed a number of strategies, including the following:

1. Distinguish between excusable and inexcusable failure. Employees must know that failure is OK, but sloppy work will not be tolerated. Implement after action reviews that ask probing questions, such as:

- Why did the failure occur?

- Was the scope document and statement of work based on reality?

- How well was the project organized?

- Did the project manager collaborate and consult with the right people?

- What are the lessons learned and how are they disseminated?

2. Engage the person, not the project. Leaders who show a genuine interest in the employees’ growth and not just the status of the project, send the message that learning and development are just as important as project success.

3. Don't praise or criticize. Farson and his colleagues found that creativity decreases with praise. Employees actually want their leaders to be more interested in their work, and less focused on patting them on the back for the work. Robert Pirsig was correct when he wrote that caring is the precursor of quality. When the leader takes a nonjudgmental, yet caring interest in the work itself and the ongoing learning, employees are more willing to tolerate failure.

4. Fess up when you mess up. Leaders who candidly admit their own mistakes communicate that experimentation and learning is desired. Former CEO of Coke, Roberto Goizueta took responsibility, and years of ribbing, for the New Coke fiasco that occurred during his time at the helm. Admitting his mistake and laughing at himself taught more than hundreds of memos and speeches.

5. Collaborate, don't compete. Post-it notes might not be here today if 3M’s Spencer Silver had worried about competing and hoarding information about the "flawed" adhesive he invented with another colleague. 3M rewards collaboration and information exchange, not silo building.

These are a few ways to encourage your team to understand that failure is not only excusable, it is desirable. Adapt them to your environment to encourage everyone to choose to look at failure as learning opportunities. Let me know what works for you.

“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.”

Thomas Watson, Sr., IBM

Keep failing,

Dave

Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes; The Failure-Tolerant Leader, Harvard Business Review, August 2002, 3 - 8.

Leaders Choose Responsibly

The Greek mythological figure Sisyphus was condemned to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to see it roll down again... forever. In the final chapter of his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus compares the absurd nature of life to Sisyphus’ predicament. Yet, the essay concludes, "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

How could endlessly rolling a rock up a mountain culminate in happiness? Because Sisyphus made rolling his rock "his thing." He accepted the absurd nature of his being and became one with his rock. He threw himself into his work and became happy.

Sisyphus is teaching us that there is no “meaning of life,” only the meaning you choose to give life. Moreover, since life is a series of successive years, which consists of months, containing days, full of minutes... The meaning of life is the meaning you choose to give the minute grains of sand slipping through your hourglass of life. Sisyphus chose to make meaning out of his minutes and work. How about you?

Keep pushing your rock,

Dave