Even the most seasoned employees make mistakes. As a leader, your role involves guiding them through both triumphs and these inevitable failures along the way. But how do you inspire them to keep going without killing their confidence or motivation?
It’s not a quick fix, but helping your employees overcome failure is a skill all managers must develop. And it starts with an inward look at your own preconceptions around failure and success. The seven tips below offer ways to help your employees learn from failure – and they may just help you see failure from a new perspective as well.
1. Spot failure early
Don’t wait until a fiasco occurs before you jump in to help your employees. Learn to recognize early when they’re struggling. Many managers would rather focus on successes than mistakes to avoid conflict, but when you notice even relatively small mistakes, that’s actually the perfect time to start a conversation with your employees and find out how you can assist them.
Check in with your employees regularly on what they’re having trouble with in your weekly one-on-one meetings. Make it a standard item on the agenda to ask, “What are you having trouble with?” Then, determine the cause behind the obstacle and do whatever you can to support your employee through it.
2. Discover why your employees are failing
Before you can help your employee through their failure, you have to find out why they’re running into trouble in the first place.
The first step is to talk to your employees. Listen to the feedback they provide. Find out if they’re happy, and if not, discover any frustrations they may have.
Here are some questions to ask when faced with poor-performing employees:
- Do they have all the information and tools needed to perform their job as expected? Employees need to understand what their job duties entail and what your expectations are. Consider pairing new employees with peer mentors to help them acclimate to their job and your company. If they don’t possess all of the skills required to do the job effectively, provide them with the training they need to become successful.
- Are they a good fit for the jobs they’re performing? Perhaps you can carve out a better-suited position for them that will make the most of their skills and natural talents. Or, if you can’t change their job duties, you might be able to help them do things differently or take on more – and new – responsibilities. Encourage them to grow in their current job so they’re ready when opportunities to advance arise.
- Are they afraid to succeed? Believe it or not, this is a real obstacle many people face. Success can be more daunting than failure to some people. They think they don’t deserve to be successful, that it will lead to risks or disappointments, or that peers will no longer like them and be jealous of their success. They may even sabotage their own success. If you have an employee who’s afraid of succeeding in their role, help them to face that fear and remove any barriers holding them back – like procrastination, lack of follow-through or simply not doing the job at all. Help them visualize how success will look and the positive outcome they can expect.
Take time to figure out why your employee is failing, and then determine the best approach to set them up for success.
3. Analyze mistakes, but don’t get bogged down in it
Don’t just evaluate your employees, analyze the mistakes themselves. Is a single employee, or the entire team, making the same mistake and how frequently? Is the mistake because of inattention, lack of training or facing situations new to your company?
If the team, not just an individual, makes the same mistakes, determine how often the mistake is made. Pay attention to any patterns you see. For example, is the mistake happening early in the process each time, or are your team members tripping up on the same step?
It may be that your employees don’t have clear direction on what or how to accomplish a task, or maybe they don’t understand the objective and how it affects the company. Understanding the purpose behind a task alone can dramatically impact an employee’s performance.
But while analysis is important, don’t go overboard. Keep your focus and your coaching on getting the job done, not overanalyzing the situation. Remain positive and offer your employee encouragement, such as, “This is complicated, and it takes everyone a few weeks to get it down, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Before long, you’ll breeze through this like you’ve always been doing it.”
4. Consider making changes
Sometimes failure isn’t about a shortcoming in your employee, but about a failure in a process or policy.
Is a process flawed, outdated or incomplete? Is it too complex for even the most capable employees to succeed? If so, your employees may need additional training – or you may need to update the processes themselves that are preventing success.
Before you dive in trying to drive change, however, it’s important to consider that you may not have the answer. Ask employees why tasks or projects are falling victim to failure, and consult the team to find out if they have suggestions for improvement. They’ll take more ownership for both failure and success if they know you’re receptive to their feedback and solutions.
5. Keep your emotions in check
Sometimes our own feelings about an employee’s failure can get in the way of coaching them through their situation. If you feel your emotions may be overpowering your logic, try sleeping on it so you can coach them more effectively when you’re feeling level-headed. Also, consider that your employee may need some space as well. If they seem emotional, give them an opportunity to recover before tackling a conversation about a failure.
When you’re ready to address the failure, curb your desire to be critical or controlling –you’ve been new to jobs yourself and should understand the frustration of failing. Most people don’t want to fail, but they may be unsure of how to succeed. Think back to how your manager or a peer helped you resolve similar situations. Who helped you learn the ropes, and how did positive coaching motivate you to do a better job?
How you approach mistakes sets the tone for your team. Everyone makes mistakes, and you want employees to feel safe when the inevitable happens.
6. Examine your expectations
Do you feel pressure to push for 100% perfection from your team? If you’re a perfectionist, take heed. Falling short of perfection is not equivalent to failure. Most people learn by experience, and no amount of coaching is going to change that, so you need to let experiential learners make minor mistakes.
Obviously, there are instances where nothing short of perfection is acceptable. A surgeon operating on the wrong knee or a nurse dispensing the incorrect dosage of medicine can have grave consequences. But if you’re in an office setting, no one’s life is in jeopardy, and it’s unlikely that the world will stop spinning if an email doesn’t go out or isn’t answered by the end of the day.
Allowing your employees the leeway to fail in minor ways without being censured for it demonstrates your trust in them. In turn, you’ll earn trust from your employees as well.
This isn’t the same as a laissez faire attitude or not caring about the quality of the work – it’s an acknowledgment that things are never going to be 100% perfect, no matter what, but that you believe your employees will still do their best.
7. Learn to see failure as a growth opportunity
Failure is, contrary to popular belief, a positive thing. After all, how would anyone ever grow if we didn’t make mistakes? Failing is the best way to learn. As a manager, you have the incredibly rewarding job of helping your employees turn their mistakes into learning opportunities that may shape them forever.
To help emphasize the positives of failure, share your own mistakes with your employees. It may make them feel more comfortable discussing their own challenges and shortcomings. Also, stay positive when discussing your own or their mistakes. Give them some perspective – let them know their failure isn’t going to close down the organization.
You should be helping your employees go outside their comfort zone so they can grow. The best way to do this is to give them tasks that are a “stretch” for them and use your one-on-one meetings to coach them through any difficulties. Soon they will see failure through a different lens.
Of course, this doesn’t mean employees shouldn’t be held accountable for their mistakes – just make sure they don’t take them too seriously.
Summing it all up
Mistakes can be good things and often lead to employee innovation, business growth, and new knowledge for your company. Most of the time, employees try to do their best. Show appreciation for well-intentioned action and risk-taking, and be positive about mistakes. Above all, make sure your team learns how to take responsibility for their mistakes and turn them into successes.
To read more about motivating your employees and helping them see the positive side of failure, download the free e-book, How to develop a top-notch workforce that will accelerate your business.