If you are a leader in business or an organization, take a new look at what you might have always perceived as failure. What if you could learn why you should look forward to failure, and how it can help you ultimately get where you want to go? For instance, when you read this statement, what’s your reaction?

“There is no such thing as failure.”  

Do you think it’s true? Maybe it makes sense to others but not to you. But what if you learned that you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a “failure” or not, changing your whole idea about failure?  In fact, some highly successful people have already learned to look at the word failure in a very different way than others.  Let’s talk about why.

Why Others Watch a Leader Handle Failure 

Doing something that seems to be a failure shows the fact that you are only human. People watch how a person of stature handles a mistake and how that person recovers from it. Watching isn’t to be cruel, but it gives others hope that they too could recover from a mistake. 

Mistake making takes on a whole new form when a person sees how a leader faces and overcomes a problem. Everyone can have a failure or a setback but not everyone knows what to do about it. Making a successful comeback after a failure can increase your reputation, build confidence and show you as a person of integrity. The comeback doesn’t even have to be huge or earth shaking. It just has to happen. 

When “Failure” is Feedback 

What if starting today, the idea of failure took a radical change in your vocabulary? What if failure really meant a form of success? How could you acknowledge your success, even as you speak the word “failure”? Well, you can point out these ideas:  

• That everything you learned in the process of getting to where you are now is not going to get thrown out — you learned good things to keep along with the stuff that didn’t work.
• That simply being able to recognize everything hasn’t gone according to plan, or achieved the desired outcome (i.e. “failed”), is in itself a positive outcome
• That even if the specific method you used this time around wasn’t the right one for this situation, you can surely use bits and pieces and parts from what you learned in another project or idea.
• That you can eliminate and not repeat the same behaviors the next time a similar situation arises. Failing to achieve a goal in one way just increases your creative understanding of what works for a situation, project, or idea or what doesn’t.
• That you’ll know to do things differently in the future. You will create in a new way to approach a problem and your creating will be quicker and more confident as a result of knowing what not to do? 
• That the experience has enabled you to grow in some way. Adversities, set backs, failures, hard times — all of these things only make you a stronger and more confident person. 

Failure can simply be a great way to get you to pause in the midst of your process, and get some critical information to indicate that you may need to change directions, try something new, continue your learning, or shift your focus. 

Imagine what would happen if you didn’t get that feedback, and continued endlessly along the wrong path, towards the wrong goal, or without ever learning a new approach? It not a pretty thought. Therefore, make time to rethink the idea of failure. Failure can really be seen as positive feedback, providing information that gets you back on the right track! Without feedback you would surely be lost. The key is to quickly identify what isn’t working so you can change direction, try something new, or shift your focus. 

How would thinking of failure as a welcome invitation to understanding a better way to pursue you life dream change your thinking? Here are some tips: 

• Always have a clear idea of where you want to go and continue to re-evaluate it as you move forward
• Identify specific milestones or markers along the way, to let you know you’re on the right track and celebrate each success
• If something doesn’t appear to be working, or working fast enough, don’t hesitate to try something new
• Continually learn from others. These can be people you work with, experts in your field, mentors, or leaders that have travelled a similar road.

Remember, no one has to stay in the same place in life. If things are not working in the direction you are headed, stop and go another way. If you tried something one way, make a change in your activity until you find out what really works. Life is a series of starts and stops. Just think of how much experience you have in different areas of life when you try something and learn new things from that experience.

Keep trying new things; never plan to stop learning, trying, experimenting, and creating. This gives a leader the confidence needed to succeed. Consider the idea of rethinking failure as a way to reach success and strengthen your leadership skills instead of a way to set you back. You will take more risks, try more challenges and increase your overall successes.

Starting a business is not that difficult; however, maintaining the vision for a business in your mind and heart is needed to keep you motivated towards your goal.  A vision is a mental picture of how you want things to be.  For instance, you would carry a mental picture of what being a success means to you. 

• You can see people coming to you saying “Yes” I want what you have to offer.   
• You see your products or services being purchased and your cash register full of cash.  

But keeping a vision alive is not the first step to building a successful venture.  The first step is to ask the most important question you will have to answer prior to being a success. That question is, Why? 

• Why are you doing what you do (or want to do) in business?  
• Why have you chosen (or will choose) to focus on a particular field, discipline, idea, etc.? 

It’s important to know why you intend to do something as intense as operating a business.  Starting or operating a business based on the wishes and dreams of others or based on the traditions within a person’s family. Perhaps you grew up in a family business and felt obligated to carry it on. But now, you might feel discouraged and unmotivated.  The business could have great potential but your lack of enthusiasm makes the marketing lackluster or almost non-existent.  When, you think about why you are in this particular business, its not because of your personal passion but because of the dreams of others. 

Working in a business because of the expectations of others is not always enough to motivate you to go through the ups and downs of business. You must have a passion for what you do.  It’s when you love the work, and want to do the business, that you are in the right field. 

This brings you back to why answering the question “Why” is an important first step to create a vision for your business. 

• Why do you even want to serve a certain target community, locally or online, in this manner?  
• Is this something you would choose to do on your own, or do you feel forced to go into this business or service?  
• Do you know that this business is the best use of your talents and skills?  
• Are you honoring your personal and business values through this business?

Answer the why and you’re on your way to understanding what you need to be doing in your life through business. 

Take time to find your true heart’s desire in business and pursue your true dreams. Then you will be a business professional who is ready to continue building your business in a way that enhances your quality of life and motivates you to continue on to success, no matter what obstacles you will inevitably face along the way.

It’s always interesting to hear people discuss the question “How do we manage change?”  As an organizational specialist, change presents a constant concern. Even when I’m training organization executives and managers, the question of change brings up the idea that change is often something that suddenly is out of hand and uncontrollable.

Here’s the business and organization reality; change is a part of growth in organizations and in life.  In fact, change is happening on a constant basis.  You can find ways to measure this change so it doesn’t happen by surprise.  In fact, it seems that the lack of forecasting some rather obvious changes by leaders in major US corporations is what resulted in a lot of our current economic crisis – but I digress.

Here are a few basic concepts to know about change and change management.

• The first concept is that organizations are “open systems.”  That means they are a part of the world around them and they are open to the influences of the world around them. Recognizing changes for organizations means staying aware of what’s happening outside as well as inside of the organization.
• An open system is influenced by both internal and external forces.  Internal forces can be controlled from within the organization while external forces effect the organization but these can’t be controlled by the organization. 
• Internal forces that affect any organization include its products or service lines, leadership and management structures, policies and procedures, human resources, marketing strategies, and operations.  These are directly controlled by organization leadership and should be influenced by external changes.
• Some external forces include the political, economic, financial educational, societal changes that directly affect the organization’s industry, location, product, people and stakeholders.
• Both internal and external forces can be watched and monitored in order to predict to the best of the organization leaders ability, the impacts any changes in these forces will have on the organization.  For instance, if politicians change a law that directly affects how your industry exchanges goods and services, this will change internal operations of the organization.  If prices of gas and oil increase and the income levels of people who purchase cars remains relatively the same, the car industry would need to make adjustments to respond to the needs and economic situation of the buying market.
• All parts of a system must work in harmony for greatest effectiveness.  Change often goes array in organizations because the effects of that change on various departments is often overlooked.  In other words, change in one area of the organization has a ripple effect on other areas.  Say for instance, marketing decides that products need to be shipped faster in order to increase customer service. The marketing department creates marketing materials promising faster shipping. However, the shipping department is the ones that have to make the faster shipping happen. They need to inform the marketing department about whether or not faster shipping is possible. This means also looking at the production department to see if products are available faster on a regular basis. It also includes accounting and of course human resources. In other words, every part of the organization system must get involved in a change for it to be effective.
• Society influences changes in the desires of your target market. It is important to watch how society is influencing the buying habits of people in your target market group. While your company provides a particular type of product or service you have to be sure you’re relating in a contemporary manner to the rapidly changing ideas of what’s in or out for your target market group. For instance, if you target young people, you’ll have to constantly change your inventory to keep up with their changing interests.  Some companies fail to make change quickly enough at price points that fit the buying ability of their target group.
• Keep your finger on the pulse point of the consumer market.  In other words, keep looking outward in order to bring new ideas inward.  Hold focus group meetings of people in your target market or let consumers ‘touch” your products.  Companies that set up stations that allow people to try their products have a way to conduct real time research by watching reactions and seeing what keeps people coming back. Even in highly self service industries, company sales people can be trained to ask more questions about buying interests and what the consumer wants. Collect this data to recognize coming changes you need to meet.

Change is going to happen because the world will never stand still.  Setting up systems to collect information is an important and basically simple way to stay informed of coming changes. Awareness for change takes place at all levels of the organization. You can move from simple data collection and awareness systems to more complex forms of forecasting to be sure you are controlling change instead of it controlling you.

Are you feeling in a rut lately?  Maybe you seem to be “going in circles” trying to reach goals that never seem to materialize? 

There are times in life when making a change is the only thing that can put you back on a path towards success.  The beginning of a New Year is the best time to do a quick assessment of what might be holding you back so you can determine if it’s time to make changes in your life or business.  

Go through this brief list and see how many areas you relate too.  Then see if working on change in your life or business should be on your “to-do” list for 2010? 

Check all that apply to you:  

__ Can’t seem to reach intended goals

__ Feel confused or stuck

__ Never seem to get out of a rut

__ Have the possibility of financial failure

__ Facing possible business failure

__ Have issues with bad habits

__ Difficulty managing stress

__ Stress is affecting your health, thought, abilities

__ Continue to try ideas that don’t succeed

__ Don’t feel good about personal issues

__ Dealing with professional issues you can’t overcome

__ Feel stifled in expressing your thoughts

__ Creativity has gotten bottled up

__ Can’t seem to finish what you start

__ Feel unhealthy, sluggish, depressed

__ Lack confidence in personal or professional abilities

__ Unable to identify, present and future potential

__ Live “in the past” and can’t move forward

__ Need to change business tactics but don’t know how

__ Need to hire different people but don’t know whom

__ Have problems with employees

__ Can’t seem to communicate effectively

__ Need to try something new but can’t figure out what that is

__ Keep doing the same things with the same results

__ Don’t know how to start a new project

__ Total Checked?

How did you do?  If you checked any of the points, you probably need to do something to get moving in your life or business.    

If you’ve been working on the same goals for years, perhaps these are not the correct ones for you?  Interests change as you become more aware of new ideas and possibilities.  If your business is lagging, could it be that the interests and needs of your target market have shifted and you haven’t changed the business to keep up?   

When you are too close to an issue it can be difficult to see where change is needed.  Step back for a while, take a rest and get a new perspective.  Try Change Success Coaching or have a long talk with a business partner you trust. 

Decide to to make Change Management a goal this year and make 2010 the year to embrace changes that move you forward and let go of old ideas that hold you behind.