Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: failure

  • Listen In -> Tangible Accountability #4: Motivators That Build In Lifelong Learning

    Tangible accountability transforms failures into learning opportunities.

    Now that you have structures that build in results and relationships that build in support, you are aware of missed deadlines, errors in judgment, miscalculated budgets, etc. right when they happen.

    For accountability to serve a positive purpose (ensure that your stated intentions are accomplished), these problems need to become possibilities. Instead of failures being the end of the story, they need to be the beginning of a new story from which your team emerges smarter, quicker, and more skilled than they were before.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss the third component of tangible accountability: Intentionally using problems to create learning opportunities.

    Imagine entire teams and processes improving in real time simply because your accountability structure provided a mechanism for learning.

    Listen in.

  • Do Your Goals Haunt or Lure?

    Do your goals haunt or lure?

    It’s the difference between having your goals behind you or in front of you.

    Behind you, the best goals can do is accuse you. They can goad you with fear or haunt like some guilting ghoul. From behind you, your goals will send one message, “You are still not there yet. What is your problem?”

    In front of you, goals can serve as an alluring tempter or temptress. They will draw you toward an extremely attractive future. Out in front, your goals will send a message of motivation, “What you want is over here. Achieve and live it. It’s worth the effort.”

    And so back to the original question. Do your goals haunt or lure?

    I believe the distinction lies within two questions. 1) Have you owned each goal as your own? And, 2) Do you interpret missteps as damning failures or learning opportunities?

    For example: What goals were set in your last performance review? Who initiated them, you or your supervisor? If your supervisor, have you made them your own yet? If not, then I’ll bet you’ll feel like the goals are haunting you all year. “Are you there yet?” “Your raise depends on this.” “Don’t mess up now.”

    On the other hand, if you’ve owned the goals as your own, then your motivation comes from within instead of outside of yourself. You want; therefore you work. The achievement is associated with a positive desire (hence “lure”) instead of a negative judgment (aka fear.)

    Regarding the inevitable missteps along the way, if every one feels like a failure to you, then your road to goal achievement is primarily an experience of obstacles and setbacks. Your spirit gets progressively beaten down instead of nourished and energized as it would if you felt you were learning and improving along the way.

    And so we need to deliberately choose to view our errors as gifts. Gifts we open with gratitude and from which we choose to benefit. Benefit by learning: becoming wiser, more skilled and more committed to playing at the top of our professional game.

    For today it is enough to simply pause and reflect on the initial question: Do your goals haunt or lure?

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Listen In -> Bad Resolution Recovery #2: “Don’t Bother” Cynics

    “New Year’s Resolutions are bunk!” (Usually screamed in even more colorful language.)

    At the other end of the spectrum, there are those of us who have given up on New Year’s resolutions. “Why set myself up for failure?” we ask ourselves.

    In this week’s podcast interview, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the attitudes of this group of cynics.

    The risk, of course, of not scheduling a regular season of self-reflection and change is that in our busy lives we may not get to it at all. That’s a big downside! We may have thrown the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

    Join us in the discussion. I think you’ll be surprised at what we can learn from the “Don’t Bother” cynics!

    Listen in.

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  • Listen In -> Recovering From Bad New Year’s Resolutions

    Now that January is about over, is the same true for your New Year’s resolutions? All those bold decisions, ambitious plans, and good intentions from 4 weeks ago… If they’re scattered around your feet as just so much discarded failure or discouragement, then this is the podcast series for you!

    Claudia Rempel is back in the studio with her flair for getting to the core of issues. Instead of getting caught in a pattern of make-a-resolution -> break-a-resolution each year, we discuss ways to redeem this tradition and turn it into a useful change tool.

    In this series we will look at four types of resolution makers:

    1. The Sweeping Changers
    2. The Don’t Bother Cynics
    3. The Half-Hearted Intenders
    4. The Rigid Disciplinarians

    Each approach has a downside that sabotages our desire for change. But each approach has an upside that we don’t want to lose track of either. Join the discussion as we have some fun getting inside why change is so hard for us.

    Listen in.

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  • Inspirational Quotes on Failure

    Check out these “Go For It” quotes I came across on Phil Gerbyshak’s Make It Great! site.

    He, ironically enough, chooses three quotes on failure to exhort us to aim high. Rosalynn Carter, Henry David Thoreau and Robert Kennedy.

    Here is my own: Fear of failure sabotages. Planning for failure instructs.

    On your side.

    Karl

  • Question of the Week

    How comfortable are you at identifying and talking about your failures?