Michael Wachs, CCO of GYK Antler and CCO of York Creative Collective
This always starts at the top. Building a culture that is OK with failure means first building a culture that understands the value of taking risks. And you can’t do any of that if your boss or director is mandating a zero-tolerance policy on perfection. All leaders and decision-makers must be aligned on being open and accountable to failure if we want to establish an environment that does.
Leyland Streiff, general manager, Heat and Deloitte Digital
This starts from the top down, and leadership needs to build this culture by example.
1. Own your own failures: Learning from failure takes acknowledgment of failing. Set an example for your team by publicly and immediately owning your own failures and showing the team what’s been learned. We all mess up, and there’s massive power in owning that. You’ll gain the respect of others and destigmatize failure.
2. Defend your team’s failures: Too many managers build themselves up by highlighting the failures of others. The old, “See how so-and-so messed this up, but don’t worry; I fixed it.” Instead, take your team’s failure as your own and remind leadership how you’ll work differently going forward. No bad will come of this. Leadership will see you as a confident, honest leader. And your team will follow you anywhere.
3. Encourage experimentation: Don’t just celebrate experimentation after the fact; ask for it from the onset. Empower the team to try new things and tell them failure is OK before it ever even happens. Only then can you create a true “test and learn” culture.