by Ted Eytan, on 10 Jul 2006 06:28 am
The Journey
Supporting Failure
I ran across this quote in the recent cover story in BusinessWeek on failure breeding success.
“Getting good” at failure, however, doesn’t mean creating anarchy out of organization. It means leaders — not just on a podium at the annual meeting, but in the trenches, every day — who create an environment safe for taking risks and who share stories of their own mistakes. It means bringing in outsiders unattached to a project’s past. It means carving out time to reflect on failure, not just success.
I like this. As they sometimes say at the beginning of a Kaizen, “your job may change.” My job has changed since we started this work. I now lead from a place that’s much closer to the patient, with the physicians and nurses that care for them.