A kettlebell and a successful fail
A successful fail
July 29th, 2018, 11:05am: a gym in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I step forward and the instructor indicates for me to proceed. I know this is going to go badly. I had lain awake the night before, sore all over, dreading daybreak. But in this moment I go ahead and clean the kettlebell to my waist, and manage to press one count, two counts, three counts… And then get stuck, halfway. Teeth gritted, I cannot for the life of me move the damn thing past my ear. I hold my form, and then I lower the weight, to applause.
In that moment, I failed to pass a certification for which I had painstakingly trained for 7 months. (To my family’s chagrin I had even brought a kettlebell to France on holiday).
So it was disconcerting to receive applause. But in Strongfirst’s parlance, I had “successfully failed” because I did not try to cheat my way to the lift. I held my form under stress, which meant my body would learn the right lessons and I was on my way to succeeding.
On your way to succeeding can feel like failing
I think there is a valuable lesson here for any leader who must contend with failure — which is to say, any leader who ventures into unknown territory: Focus on the way you are leading, not on whether you are succeeding or failing.
Failure is the operating context of the unknown. You may feel its presence viscerally. And outside your zone of competence and experience, you will stumble. I have had many setbacks learning the intricacies of kettlebell training, just as I have in starting a business. Along the way, on both counts, I have felt inadequate, lonely, stupid, anxious, and occasionally downright scared. What I have learned is to treat each moment as an opportunity to get your “form” right. And if you do, in the long run any short-term setback is positive.
After that moment in Philadelphia I realized that I was focused too much on success or failure as future events, and not enough on taking each moment of unknowing-ness as a chance to learn and to develop my “form”, whether that be in strength, or in building a business.
My experience failing the certification was, as the Brits would say, a “character-building” moment.
As form is to kettlebells, so is character to leadership
One of my favorite leaders, stepping into her CEO role at a major retailer, wrote in her opening talk to the company that the business was not going to get any easier. It was going to be a context of continuous disruption. And that what she cared about most in leadership at the company was how they showed up in that context. She asked that they show up with curiosity, courage, and creativity. The curiosity to keep learning. The courage to keep trying. The creativity to come up with novel solutions.
Those are character traits, not technical skills. They are a way of leading, rather than a narrow expertise. When we are leading at the edges of our competence, we have to ignore success or failure and focus on the character and form we can bring to each moment, each decision, each move we make.
Are we being curious? Are we taking responsibility for our actions? Are we being honest?
Practicing the way forward: some practical cues
When you’re doing something new, focus on the way you’re leading — not whether you’re failing or succeeding. After reflecting a while for this article, I’ve settled on two questions and one ritual that I think are useful cues for leaders operating in a context of unknowns.
First, my favorite question with a team:
“There are so many unknowns, so what is just the right first move to make?”
The point is to bring people out of anxious thoughts about the future, to the more concrete present, and then to orient them around what is “right” — which is an opening to be at your best.
Second, my favorite question to ask privately:
“What does good leadership look like in this moment?”
The point here is to become more self-aware in the moment, and to bring your leadership ideals into your decision-making.
Third, a ritual:
One of the most validated and valuable practices to integrate into your work is the After Action Review (AAR). It first came out of the military, but has since been adopted by many learning organizations including several that we work with.
Essentially, after any significant event — could be a business development meeting, a project milestone, etc — you gather your team together, put rank aside, and each person answers the following questions:
What happened and why?
What can we learn from this?
What will we do differently next time? (or “How will we apply these learnings?”)
Lead bravely,
Tom
P.S. I’m retaking the kettlebell certification in June of 2019. Wish me well, and stay tuned. Gulp.