What If We Fail?:
The Extraordinary Leader's Role in Creating Fearless Project Teams
By Ron Jungalwalla

Copyright © Quest Group Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.

Take a moment to consider what your team would attempt if they knew they could not fail. An awe inspiring thought!

From this, it is apparent that fear of failure is a critical barrier to setting, and therefore achieving, goals and outcomes that stretch beyond what has previously been achieved. The absence of that very fear of failure is precisely why children learn so fast.

"Each morning the child cups his hands and receives life, thumb rim full, and lets fear slip through his little fingers" - Edna Hong

A leader who can banish the fear of failure from their Team's specific setting will unleash amazing potential.
A leader who can then coach their people in the tools and strategies of exploring beyond known parameters can create an unstoppable team. This will be a team that seeks to raise the bar for itself before anyone else has a chance to, at times even before its leader!
A leader who provides this opportunity is an Extraordinary Leader, one who has created a space where extraordinary people and extraordinary teams grow. These are individuals and teams who regard perceived impossibilities simply as challenges yet to be solved.

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" - Lewis Carroll

In an environment where people have already achieved great things, the Extraordinary Leader will take his / her people on a continuous improvement journey with no end. A journey where the closest thing to a destination is finding a better way; and as we know, there is always a better way. This is an exciting, engaging and stimulating journey where passionate people will be in awe of impossibilities transforming into realities.

"Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul … impossibilities vanish" - La Fontaine
So what are the practical strategies that Extraordinary Leaders might use to dispel the fear of failure in their people? Here are some to consider:

1. Create a culture & process to foster 'accountability' not 'blame'
Blame, the assignment of guilt to a person, is a 'dead end' activity. 'This was your fault' does not generate solutions, fails to motivate positive change, encourages the burial of mistakes, makes learning highly unlikely and erodes team relationships.
Accountability, however, is the assignment of responsibility, not for a negative outcome, but for the learning that must emerge from it, and the implementation of that learning in future ventures.
I was taught this lesson many years ago, by the story of a client who had made what could only be politely, described in 'business terms' as a monumental blunder. He had committed his company to an inextricable contract which, in the long term proved over $3 Million more expensive than the alternative!
He went on to describe being called into his CEO for the inevitable sacking, but being stunned by this exceptional leader's request that he prepare a presentation for other senior staff to share his learnings from the incident, and make recommendations on future contract policies. In his shocked state, the employee asked for confirmation that he was in fact not being sacked, to which the CEO replied "Sack you! Hell, why should we sack you when we have just spent over $3 million training you?"
Hence when a mistake has been made, an Extraordinary Leader might use language such as:
"What are the learnings"
"What should you / we change, do more/less of?"
"What will be the key performance indicators (KPI's for having learnt and implemented the learning?)"
"When will we review the KPI's?"
"How will you/we spread this learning throughout the team (if appropriate)?"
Notice that all the above are questions being asked, not statements being made. A hallmark of Extraordinary Leaders focused on accountability. Consider developing a 'Learning Accountability' proforma, which lists questions such as those above for the individual's involved in a learning opportunity to complete. Such an approach will breed a culture where mistakes are leveraged for the learning they offer, and thereby become rungs on the ladder of success. After all:
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes" - Oscar Wilde

2. Redefine 'failure' and 'success'
Many organizations consider not reaching a target as a 'failure', ironically 'failing' to see their potential for successful and valuable learning. The Exceptional Leader will redefine 'failure' as a 'failure to learn' from a mistake, rather than the mistake itself. More importantly, such a leader will define 'success' as continuous improvement, which of course is based on learning.

3. Set both 'benchmark' and 'stretch' goals
There is ample research which suggests that Teams that set themselves high goals get higher results. Interestingly, such teams may not achieve their higher goals as often as other Teams setting lower goals, however they will tend to get higher results.
By way of example, Sales Team A might set an annual sales target of 1,000 units and may well achieve 1,250 units, defining this as a 'success'. However Sales Team B who set themselves a 1,500 unit annual sales target but 'only' achieved 1,400 units, may well consider this a 'failure'! Both Leader and Team must decide if they are going to gauge their success by how often they achieve their goals or by the level of results, as these are differing criteria!
An Exceptional Leader will encourage the Team to set two goals. The first of these is a 'Benchmark Goal', which can be defined as 'the minimum we will expect of ourselves'. It is a base goal and one the team is prepared to guarantee. The second goal is to be far more ambitious, being a 'Stretch Goal'. This needs to be a real 'reach for the stars' target which might seem well out of reach, and even maybe even (currently) impossible.
This dual goal system will allow a Team to get the best of both worlds and provide milestones to celebrate whilst still exploring what is possible by striving for great heights.

4. Set a practical continuous improvement approach and methodology
One simple yet effective approach is to take a little time out between each identifiable project and the next and follow the five steps below:
STOP! ~ Often the most challenging, but essential to continuous improvement.
IDENTIFY LEARNINGS ~ Brainstorm all the learnings that have arisen from the project/event.
PRIORITIZE ~ Select the two or three most urgent (not necessarily most important).
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN ~ Develop a plan to implement these priority learnings into the day-to-day setting, including time lines, who does what etc.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ~ How will you know you have succeeded? Develop and agree on key performance indicators.
Once a team that gauges success by learning and continuous improvement knows it has a tool to extract learning from any situation, positive or negative, the fear of failure is further diminished.

5. Be infectiously optimistic
Simply put, if as a leader you do not believe that your people are capable of greater things, neither will they! The Exceptional Leaders of history such as Ernest Shackleton, Mahatma Gandhi and, more recently, Nelson Mandela all shared an infectious optimism which shone through the darkest times to lead their people to better things. These people used optimism as an antidote to the fear of failure. The Exceptional Leader will also seek out and leverage from other optimists within their Team, placing them in situations where their positive approach infects others.
The first step in searching for something effectively is to believe it exists! The first step to getting even better results is to believe it is possible.
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, chances are you will be proven right" - Henry Ford

6. Recognize and reward innovation & calculated risk taking
Interestingly, the Exceptional Leaders of history were not necessarily risk takers by nature, but they all displayed a preparedness to take calculated risks. Similarly, Exceptional Leaders will encourage their people to take calculated risks, whilst remaining accountable (as defined earlier).
In particular, Exceptional Leaders will create an environment where people's ideas, no matter how effective, small or far fetched, are encouraged and heard without ridicule. This will signal that it is safe to generate more of them, and that even the poor ones are not 'failures'. In the absence of those fears, innovation will flourish; and innovation is how teams raise the bar and then clear it!

7. Lead the whole person
It is important for the Exceptional Leader to understand that when their team members arrive for work, the whole person comes; not just the cognitive (thinking) being, but also the affective (feeling) being. A leader who only deals with and acknowledges one or the other of these fundamental human components will only be doing half a job of leadership.
Most business organizations and their leaders focus disproportionately on the cognitive or intellectual half, because it is easier to quantify. After all, I can measure my employees' understanding of a task far more easily than I can measure their morale, motivation or commitment. Yet we do know that both cognitive and affective components can profoundly determine team and organizational outcomes.
By acknowledging the whole person, a leader makes it possible to be dissatisfied with one aspect of a team member eg. their understanding of a task (cognitive), whilst still acknowledging and appreciating another, e.g. their level of commitment and motivation (affective), in staying behind late to better understand the task. This ability to balance feedback and deal with the whole person allows the Exceptional Leader to further reduce fear in the work place. After all, "while the boss may not be happy with how I think on this project, he/she appreciates how I feel about it".
Fear of failure resides in the affective being, consequently, it is this aspect of the person that the Exceptional Leader will have to understand and manage in order to dispel this trepidation.

8. Be skilled in feedback
Many leaders determine the quality of feedback simply by its demonstrable content accuracy. Given that the one central purpose of effective feedback is to generate improvement, accuracy of content alone will not be enough to affect any change.
I well remember a soccer coach telling a highly motivated young recruit who was even more 'solid' than I, "you're fat"! This 'feedback' was supremely and undeniably accurate! Did it cause him to go and lose weight? No, but it did cause this previously motivated (and quite talented) player to give up on soccer, for he had quite reasonably developed a fear of such a humiliation being repeated. From this example, we see that feedback can be completely accurate and yet spectacularly unsuccessful!
So other than accuracy, what does successful feedback require? The Exceptional Leader will create the right setting for feedback, be honest and open, but will find aspects of performance worthy of praise to balance the areas which need improvement. The Exceptional Leader's belief that the person can and will do a good/better job is an imperative message to impart on them.

Action ideas for (almost) Exceptional Leaders

Consider each of the eight strategies above, and rate your current leadership behaviors on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 10 (already exceptional), for each. Select the lowest rating three strategies, and develop a developmental action plan for each which considers:

What do I need to do more of?
What do I need to do less of?
How will I know if I am improving (i.e. what will be the Key Performance Indicators)
Who could be a mentor or buddy, to provide me with feedback on progress?
When will I review progress on this?

The leader who can create an organizational environment to his/her Team that has is a strong requirement for accountability, but where "there is nothing to fear but fear itself" (Shakespeare), will enable the realization of their Team's potential and have made significant steps to along the pathway to becoming an 'extraordinary leader'.


Copyright © Quest Group Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.