This summer I read David McCullough’s book on the building of the Panama Canal. The book, called ‘The Path Between the Seas’, is as much about the engineering miracle as it is about the triumph of leadership and management.

The book has more than 600 pages, but one page still stands out in my memory. On this page John Stevens, the Chief Engineer for a number of years and for all practical purposes the CEO, makes the following point:

"You won’t get fired if you do something, you will if you don’t do anything. Do something if it is wrong, for you can correct that, but there is no way to correct nothing."

Exactly. That’s the way to create miracles. Do something, fix it quickly if it turns out wrong and then learn from it.

Almost one hundred years later, many managers seem to promote the opposite view. No wonder business miracles are in short supply.

Okay, so you did something and it turned out not to be the miracle you expected. Now what? How do you react to failure? Do you view it as the end of something or as the beginning of a new phase?

Do you accept failure as something that has shrunk you in some way, possibly because it has diminished your credibility and stature? Or do you welcome failure because it expands you with new knowledge and experience?

If you answered yes to the second question in each case, then consider yourself a leader — or at least leadership material.

Warren Bennis, a long-standing authority on leadership, believes that the worst problem a leader can face is early success. Why? Because then there is no opportunity to learn from adversity and problems. To become a good leader, you must first develop as an individual. And that takes a couple of failures.

It’s best to fail often and fail early. But even if you did not, don’t despair. You’re never too old to fail... or to lead.

By the way, failing early only works if you know that you have failed. The only way to know is to get feedback and one of the best ways of getting feedback is to ask for it. So here I go... asking for feedback. Please tell me what you think of my newsletters, this particular newsletter, my nonsense, your nonsense, any nonsense. Please just tell me - james@nonsenseatwork.com

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© 2008 James Henry McIntosh - All rights reserved