Assignment 26A - Celebrating Failure

I was recently promoted at work, about two months ago. I am at the corporate offices now, and lead a team that supports all of our offices world-wide. It is a very dynamic time for our company, with significant growth, change, and opportunity. Sometimes, I still can’t believe I was able to land this gig. As I start to type up this assignment, I am sitting in business class of a Boeing Dreamliner on my way to Shanghai for my first international business trip with the company. But, these last couple months have not been without significant challenge. It is a completely new business that I am trying to learn, a new team, new technology, new…everything. I am quite literally trying to figure out what my organization does, how we do it, what we need, what we expect, what others expect of us, and most importantly (from my perspective) what they expect from me (and how to do it)!

One of many such expectations recently came from my VP. She wanted me to create a proposal for the new enterprise-wide departmental quarterly report, and she wanted it in two weeks. Wait a minute. You want the new guy who has no idea what we do here to create a company-wide, executive-level proposal showcasing what our department does?! I received some high level direction on what she wanted to see in the report, and was sent off to conquer the task! I did a lot of investigating and asking questions. What did we do? What was the impact? Who did that? Who is that? How did they do that? Why did we do that? The questions were endless. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And, just when I thought I understood, it would become clear that I did not and I was back to the drawing board. And, let’s just say I did not get a lot of willing hands that raised up to help me (in reflection because I think most were just as intimidated by my task, and had just as many questions as I did). And, just when I thought I had it solved after about three weeks (1 week past the deadline) and after countless hours invested by myself and several of my team members, I took the proposal to my boss for review before it went to the VP. I was sent away defeated. Clearly my boss was expecting something more, or something different, and I felt like a complete failure.

There have been multiple times since I took this job that I thought I had made a mistake in accepting the role, that I am in over my head, and I need a quick exit plan. Just this past week, however, I am starting to believe maybe that pessimism was premature. The context for my research and proposal was based on the VP’s request, and the work I did was compelling enough that it made my boss challenge her own understanding of what our VP wanted. That need for clarity gained us a project extension until December. And, just yesterday as I sat next to my boss while she put the final touches on a presentation of her own for our VP, she said to me “I don’t know why I am trying so hard to make this perfect. It doesn’t matter anyway, because she [the VP] is going to rip it apart anyway!” Hearing that from my boss made me feel so wonderful that I was not alone!

I have always been willing to take risks, calculated risks that is, and this class really hasn’t changed my perspective on that. But how I think about failure I’ve experienced as a result of taking risk has been recently changed, or at least I’ve been reminded of what I had forgotten, especially after reading our third book requirement for the course. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams reminded me that I need to manage illusions wisely, in order to effectively influence my self-perceptions. I have to remember I have a high level of responsibility (this is ranked my #2 Strengthfinder), and sometimes that high sense of responsibility can result in my assuming unrealistic self-expectations to my physical, mental, and emotional detriment. I needed to view the work example given in this post not as failure, but rather as feedback for how to move forward. The book also reminded me that I need to grant myself permission be selfish and take care of me first so I can be generous to others (work, family, friends, and community) in the long run. There is no benefit to anyone if my view of failure (and my fear of repeatedly doing so) drives me to work myself into the ground to the detriment of my work quality, stop exercising to the detriment of my health, and put work first to the detriment of my personal relationships.