Please read to the end of this post to get the chance to win a copy of my book, First & Fast.
This week’s riff: Earlier this week I ran a business breakfast meeting, in support of SportsAid, where we discussed how organisations can turn failure into success and growth. Around a dozen business leaders, from companies of all sizes, quickly started to focus the discussion on how best to shape the environment for sharing lessons and failures.
One marketing expert, for instance, recalled her time at Asda in the early 1990s, where the grocer’s leadership team, Archie Norman and Allan Leighton, ran a big meeting every Friday where managers were encouraged to share both their successes and failures with their colleagues and peers.
Elsewhere, the airline industry has strict procedures and protocols to report and act on defects and errors. A single issue with a 747 at Seoul airport, for instance, will lead to checks on all derivatives of this plane right across the globe. As Matthew Syed noted in his excellent book, Black Box Thinking, this highly structured approach has been hugely successful in improving airline safety performance.
What steps have you taken to consciously develop an environment in your business where both successes and failures are shared and followed up, and where failures can be rapidly turned into improvements for future success?
Off The Record: Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime by The Korgis
Change your heart, look around you
Change your heart, it will astound you
I need your loving, like the sunshine
Everybody’s got to learn sometime
Competition Time: OK, here’s your chance to win a copy of my book, First & Fast.
Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime was The Korgis’ only top 10 hit, but in which year did it reach Number 5 in the UK pop charts?
To answer, simply visit my Facebook page –https://www.facebook.com/MorganCrossConsulting/ – and post your answer in the comments section under the post that I’ve pinned to the top of the page. You have until midday GMT on Thursday 16th November to post your answer. I’ll then draw a winner at random and will inform them directly. Good luck!
Please note: This giveaway is in no way affiliated with Facebook or any of its subsidiaries. Open to UK residents only.
© Stuart Cross 2017. All rights reserved.