Imagine a magic mirror in your boardroom.
It shows the truth, nothing but the truth.
Would your executives and board members be happy to look into it?
Anyone asked that question will first wonder: is it safe to look?
Suppose it reflects imperfection. Little doubt they would welcome it. Who doesn’t want to discover some untapped potential on the road to perfection?
Now replace the mirror with a different kind. The kind that reflects failures. Large and small. Deformed and hideous.
I bet there would be less enthusiasm to pose in front of that one.
The frame matters.
In The Right Kind of Wrong, Amy Edmondson raises a few sharp questions to assess how healthy your failure culture really is. Think about all the executive presentations that made it to the boardroom and all the discussions around the table.
How much of that was a good news show? Reflections on progress in all directions: finance, acquisitions, transformation projects, and so on. How much unanimous agreement? How much applause for executive initiatives and for reported results? Compare this with the amount of time spent on bad news, problems, and diverging opinions. If the latter takes only a marginal fraction of the board’s time, business must be great. The company must be thriving.
Or not?
Maybe nobody is attempting anything difficult? Maybe everyone is flying on autopilot?
You don’t agree? Standards are high in your business. So there simply are no failures? Or simply no failures reported?
A mirror that blames will instantly ask: “Who screwed this up? Who is guilty?”
That mirror calls for a trial.
Those standing in front of the mirror will quickly make sure the reflection points elsewhere. It’s not us. The others created this mess.
For the mirror, the job is done. Case closed.
Blame is the wrong frame.
It will be far more useful for the board to look into a mirror that studies the failure. One that focuses on what happened.
A mirror that studies is not satisfied with: “It didn’t work. We will try harder next time.”
That mirror first reveals the stakes of the failure. High or low? Was the organization aware of those stakes, and did it take them into account throughout the process?
What about the context of the failure? Were decisions taken in a highly uncertain situation or in a very predictable one? Or maybe the organization had done this before, but in a context that differed in some important ways from the one that failed?
Were the organization and its processes equipped to deal adequately with that context?
The shape and characteristics of the failure matter. They determine the diagnosis.
The diagnosis determines what there is to learn.
And what you learn determines what you prevent next time.
One question deserves special attention: did the executives and the board underestimate the level of uncertainty or variability?
“Been there. Seen that. Done that.”
These words express rich experience.
Or overconfidence?
These words carry a fundamental assumption: this case is the same as the one before. That might be. Or it might not be.
It might be safer to test the hypothesis rather than assume you know. That approach can prevent a basic failure: a failure that should not have happened.
Its opposite is the intelligent failure. In new territory, trying is sometimes the only way to find out. It reduces uncertainty, at a price worth paying, provided the bet was thoughtful and its downside contained.
A good mirror tells the two apart.
But how often does the board table whisper that the failure was written in the stars?
Usually it wasn’t. There were many signals, though, that hinted things were moving in the wrong direction. Signals that were dismissed. At the bottom of the organization. And at the top.
Why?
Because nobody felt psychologically safe enough to look in the mirror? Because the wrong mirrors were hanging in the corner office and on the top floor?
Now imagine the mirror hangs in a safe frame.
Would the bright people around your board table be willing to take a look?
Easier, perhaps, when egos are left at the door.