This week’s incendiary thought centres on the value of failure and comes from a conversation I had with Rachel Treece, my podcast guest for October.
When she moved to Luxembourg over thirty years ago, she learned Luxembourgish on the fly from listening to children. It taught her some very important lessons about the learning process.
This is what I gleaned from our chat:
- We can learn through failure but only if we have a safe space to do this in. I remember when my children were learning how to walk – we didn’t admonish them for falling over, we put them back on their feet again to carry on. It’s the same with language acquisition – and learning to scale your business. This leads me to my next point.
- Children learn by mimicking and trying things out. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong but it’s clear that failure leads to transformation and change. Each sticking point becomes a signpost, taking us on to the next stage.
- Empowerment means someone has given you power over your journey but true self-agency comes from true self-ownership. A toddler will fail and fall over and that’s expected – it’s part of the process. If the parent held the child up, it would not walk. In business, we learn balance and become stronger by falling over and then picking ourselves up.
- It goes further. What if we were to build a culture where other people are happy to engage in this? They don’t have to waste time and energy checking in all the time, they don’t need hand-holding. They know they not only have a safe space to make decisions but the culture is so strong that they can connect at source as it were. Everyone is heading in the same direction.
So reconceptualise the times when things are not so good. When you make decisions and they don’t turn out, that’s OK.
This is an important part of the learning journey.
The show is out now here or on your favourite podcast platform. Search for Sparks by Ignium with Phil Rose and click on From Marketing to Recruitment to Henka – Rachel Treece’s Journey.
I hope you enjoy it.
Have a great day.
#rockefellerhabits #routines #habits #goodhabits #howtogrow #scalingup Scaling Up Coaches
PS – if you’re someone who needs more information then please watch out for the details of the next LinkedIn Live session I’ll be part of with Dominic Monkhouse and Karol Popa – Scaling Up Coach. It’s a great way to learn more and ask questions or get in touch.
Image credit:- Francisco De Legarreta C.