We can learn a lot from failure…
| I was recently asked to do a presentation to group of practice owners. I asked how long they had allocated for my presentation….they wanted me to list and go through all of my successful decisions. I said, “I could get through that presentation in about 15 minutes.” “Well, we’ve got a couple of hours,” they said. “We could get partly the way through all of my failures in that time, but we’re probably just scratching the surface,” I said. Beleura Health Solutions, anti-inflammatory tea and muscle relaxant tea, registered through the TGA come to mind. But gee did we learn a lot once we got over the distress of it. The fact is only through making many poor decisions and having many failures, did that lead me to making better decisions and having more successes. Overall with time, experience, failures, grief, knowledge and wisdom, my successful decisions hopefully amounted to more than my failures. As physiotherapists and practice owners, we don’t like to talk about our failures because we tend to take it personally and, we see it as a blight on our ability or character. The fact is to even become a registered physiotherapist, you are in fact successful. To become an experienced practitioner or to begin a practice which becomes sustainable, is in fact a measure of your success. But we learn more through our failures and our poor decisions, and hence the opportunity to learn from them should not be missed. Professor Dean Shepherd is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame University in the United States. He’s an Australian. I know Dean as his first degree was a Bachelor of applied science in Human Movement in Melbourne with me in Melbourne in the mid 80s. Seriously. He’s done a TED talk in relation to what you can learn from failures, and he mentions it’s important to realise that while businesses can fail from time to time in various aspects, business owners and entrepreneurs learn. Dean believes that whether you are taking the business in a different direction or starting a new business, you are pursuing an opportunity in an area of uncertainty and an adventure into the unknown. Dean believes that learning from mistakes is not automatic or instantaneous but rather takes time. With any failure, Dean is of the view that grief or “the negative emotional reaction to something that is important to us” actually helps with the learning process. However, it’s important to not remain in this negative emotional state for too long as this will become an obstacle to learn from the failure. See below for his TED talk. |
| So if you’re a clinic owner and you’ve tried something new recently, and it didn’t work, you are not a failure. If you hired a recent employee that did not go past their probation, you are not a failure. The fact is if you’re in a position to try something new or employ someone, you’re very successful. Don’t get despondent, acknowledge the failure, grieve over it … then review, learn, and become more successful. Many of you know I love basketball so I’ll finish with a Michael Jordan quote… “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or queries or if you would like to discuss ideas further either via my mobile (0439347339) or email (antony@antonyhirstconsulting.com.au). Kind Regards, Antony Hirst |