Risk & Business Magazine Benson Kearley IFG Fall 2019 | Page 29

MAKING BETTER MISTAKES A s entrepreneurs, business executives, and leaders of any kind, we make a lot of decisions, some important, some not so much. What happens when those decisions are wrong or just made at the wrong time? "MAKE THE DECISION, MOVE ON, FAIL FORWARD, JUGGLE, LEARN ON THE FLY. FAILURE IS HOW WE LEARN. IT’S WHAT CREATES WISDOM." Do we always have to be right? I would say no. As a matter of fact, I would say making mistakes shows courage, strength, confidence, and even vision. Thomas Edison said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” I didn’t go to college or university. I had no interest at the time as I was not a very motivated student. School never appealed to me. I could blame it on my school or my teachers, but really it was me. I just was not captured by the curriculum. It seemed irrelevant. Because of that, I joined our family business at 18 and started my business career which now has stretched into 40+ years. Where does the time go? I grew in business by trial and error. I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I tried things I didn’t know anything about but wanted to keep growing. It was the only way I knew how to get ahead. Today I still make mistakes—hopefully a few less—but with the changing world we live in, the answers to today’s problems are not the same as they were 5, 10, or 15 years ago. We are having to find answers to today’s issues with no real experience to back us up. HOW DO WE DEAL WITH OURSELVES, OUR TEAM, OR EVEN OUR FAMILY WHEN WE MAKE MISTAKES? • • Move on after a mistake. Errors and mistakes can take their toll on us if we don’t have the ability to move on afterward. Taking time for reflection is the right thing, but then move on and get over it. There is a lesson to be learned from every mistake. Learn and move on. • Don’t let mistakes define who you are or what you think of your abilities. You are not perfect and never will be. All we can strive for is to be better than we were yesterday. As I learned at the Strategic Coach program, strive for progress, not perfection. Here are several ways to handle mistakes in a positive fashion to help us learn some valuable lessons from them: • Admit when we make a mistake. Admit it to ourselves and to our teams and be transparent about them. Be vulnerable! Being vulnerable, I believe, is a key trait to being an exceptional leader. If we can be vulnerable, it gives our team the ability to also be vulnerable. Our ego must be set aside for the greater good of the company. Try not to make the same mistakes over and over. With how the world is changing, what was a wrong decision a few years ago could very well be the correct decision today. Evaluate and move on. Having a laser-type focus is the best way to make sure we don’t repeat the history of making the same mistake twice. WHERE HAVE SOME OF OUR BIGGEST MISTAKES BEEN MADE? • Hiring the wrong person and not deciding to make a change fast enough • Not staying current with today’s ever-changing world and being slow to catch up • • Going against our gut instincts Trying to be politically correct and not being transparent (not deciding is deciding) The bottom line is we all make decisions that at the time may seem correct but prove to be incorrect. A colleague of my father’s told me over 40 years ago, “Make the decision. You will be right more than you are wrong.” I have never forgotten that advice. Thomas Edison made over 1,000 attempts to invent the light bulb. Walt Disney made over 300 attempts to get financing for his dream of creating Disney World. What did they both have in common? After a mistake or setback, they kept going. Their vision, their passion, their motivation kept them moving forward. There has always been the debate of, What’s better: “book smarts” or “street smarts”? I would say a good combination is best. Make the decision, move on, fail forward, juggle, learn on the fly. Failure is how we learn. It’s what creates wisdom. I’ve been doing it for 40+ years, and other than a few less hairs and what I have left greying, all is well. + BY: DOUG BUNDOCK, BENSON KEARLEY IFG Doug Bundock, CRM is Vice President of Operations at Benson Kearley IFG. Doug is a certified Coach & Trainer at the John Maxwell organization. You can reach Doug at [email protected]. 29