Somewhere in our childhood we became conscious of what it means to “fail.” We feel we lose our power if what we do is not perfect, if we fall and get hurt, if we hurt someone else...

There was shame in getting an “F” or not understand something. In fact it could become such a powerful social force NOT to fail, you begin to avoid how you could grow. You put yourself inside the very box we want to dismantle.

Many of us have some area of our life that is so “hot” to avoid failure, it often is stopping us from achieving the goals we really want—our dream job, relationships, childhood fantasies we could fulfill if we had the courage to move or go back to school. For many of us today, becoming the best manager of people transformation is what will keep us inspired in whatever path we choose, but that comes with a fear of rocking the boat. What ever you can dream as a goal that brings you engaged inspiration, on its downside there is often a fear of what it will take to achieve it.

What if the new norm is that to FAIL is to Succeed?

This is not the new norm, it is as old as humans themselves, it is just that the early adopters often are creating a trail of innovation for others to follow because most of them would never have had the courage to step out and be the first on the path. In our business world of the last few decades it became important to be perfect, not make mistakes, be cost cutting and revenue high, build your earnings for Wall Street and your peers. Innovation has suffered. We have become a country terrified of failing yet immersed in it in a worldwide global recession of failure.

And from this view we have a wonderful opportunity to grow and be innovative in our thinking out of this box! Think of how this failure could have ended without a dose of healthy perspective, innovation, collaboration and determination.

The man before the mouse, Walt Disney, formed his first animation company in Kansas City in 1921. He made a deal with a distribution company in New York, in which he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down the road. Flushed with success, he began to experiment with new storytelling techniques, his costs went up and then the distributor went bankrupt. He was forced to dissolve his company and at one point could not pay his rent and was surviving by eating dog food. And when he took a train from New York to the west coast, after a painful business failure of betrayal--he was befriended by a little mouse in his compartment and begins sketching him. The rest is history with plenty more spectacular failures and rip roaring successes!

Bring back the Walt Disney’s of the world who thought big, failed big, and kept on sprinkling his Pixie Dust of creativity to build a brand and legacy! Of what it means to fail, succeed and fail again to finally get your wish upon a star… Walt was a “Merlin” of what it means to embrace failure as a Merlin’s stone to success.

Failure according to Walt Disney: "To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I've made some bad ones, but, fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do you are bound to get a good average."

The Walt Disney Company, and all the best organizations of today that inspire innovation such as Pixar, Southwest Airlines, and Joie de Vivre Hospitality, bring in some part of this Creativity Model that drives innovation within company walls.

Up to bat first is a collaborative culture:

• Managers build teams that value honesty and trust.

• Ideas can be expressed honestly and without fear

• They create a peer culture and free up communication across teams

• They embrace a learning environment and empower their employees

• Teams value collaborative discussion and are willing to take creative risks

• The know the cornerstone of a healthy team and organization is the commitment to building genuine relationships where people know that their ideas and inspiration are valued in the overall mission of the organization

• Their Team members have a common understanding of company values, where they fit in the organization and how to focus their creative energy

• The leaders at the top inspire the culture below them. They walk the talk of mission, values and what it takes to learn from successful failure. They value the GNH, the Gross National Happiness of their employees

So reframe your thinking, change perspectives, it takes courage to FAIL and color outside the lines. In fact, many of the Venture Capitalists of today will look for leadership that has had failures in the past. They will have learned from those mistakes and most likely not repeat them in the same way. They know what it means to fail and have kept going to achieve success.

In fact we all do—all of us have experienced what it means to fail and most of these experiences have taught us valuable lessons. Lessons that we share with our staff, and integrate into our personal life.

Some lessons include becoming more playful with intuition and living with ambiguity in decision--making. Seeking collaboration and becoming flexible and quick to act when you know you must take action and could fail. Remember it takes courage to lead a team towards a big success or a celebrated failure but solid lessons will be learned.

The command and control organization of corporate America today is stifling a workforce brimming with creative ideas held in treasure chests inside millions of cubicles. Building a corporate culture of emotional intelligence, which includes the courage to innovate, is how we are going to revitalize our country back into engagement. And this is where all of us are being called upon to FAIL in order to succeed. You will have to be a voice against bullies and an even stronger voice for collaboration and trust building. Building trust with your peers to be something greater as a team than what you can accomplish by yourself is embraced and rewarded by top leadership.

Then give each other the permission to FAIL, one of the best attributes of childhood you can live with for the rest of your life!

—Maria Felice Cunningham Chief Transformation Officer

415.450.0566 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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