It’s Week #9 of 2016. This is our latest article in a series of ideas to elevate trust in your organization, drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!
52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust
Bill George one of our 2016 Top Thought Leaders in Trust, and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner offers this:
“Encourage risk-taking and celebrate “good failures” as opportunities to learn and move forward.”
Think of the most challenging moment in your life. Perhaps it was a time when a loved one passed away, or you had a personal health crisis. Whatever it was, it was a period of crisis for you — but also a moment that caused you to reflect deeply on who you are and what is truly important in your life.
Risk-taking helps us bump into these moments. Often, people avoid risks because they fear failure. But, failing doesn’t mean “you’re a failure” unless you allow it to. The best leaders reflect on their mistakes and learn from them. What separates people who learn from their mistakes from people who don’t? It’s all about their mindset.
In my HBS class “Authentic Leadership Development,” one of the survivors of the famous 1972 plane crash speaks about the importance of reframing failure. He shares the metaphor of the oyster pearl. When sand grates against the oyster, its natural reaction is to cover up the irritant to protect itself with a substance called nacre (mother-of-pearl), which eventually forms the pearl itself.
Celebrating “good failures” helps us turn difficult moments into pearls and builds trust. At IBM in the 1960s, an employee made a mistake that cost the company $10 million. When the employee spoke to the CEO, Tom Watson Sr., he expected to be fired. Watson replied, “Are you serious? We just spent $10 million educating you!” Acts like these help your team learn from their mistakes. Even more important, they make others feel comfortable taking risks.
With all of life’s uncertainties, we need to accept what life brings us and to use each experience as an opportunity for personal growth. If we do, we’ll encourage positive risk-taking. As Sven-Goran Eriksson put it, “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”
Thank you Bill. We hope our readers heed your advice.
It’s not too late to catch up on our weekly series…..
Week #1 Kouzes & Posner
Week #2 Bob Vanourek
Week #3 Barbara Kimmel
Week #4 Mark Fernandes
Week #5 Doug Conant
Week #6 Roger Steare
Week #7 Nan Russell
Week #8 Stephen M.R. Covey
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its sixth year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.
Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.
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