This time, I’m going to focus on a subject which we will probably have to face in the business world – how to come to terms with a failure or disappointment of some sort.

Perhaps you didn’t get the promotion you felt you deserved, perhaps your key client renewed…but for a smaller quantity than expected, or maybe the project you’d been working on for some time was suddenly shelved by your boss following a change in strategy! Whatever kind of company you work in or what kind of job you have, I’m fairly sure that you’ll have come across cases similar to these. The questions which follows on quite logically from this is – how should we react to a “failure” of some sort?

This is a theme which sometimes comes up during my seminars and workshops, and I usually begin by asking the participants to offer their own answers to the question, before trying to see if there really is a common solution of some sort.

Some people can be paralyzed by a failure especially if they were really expecting a success and had invested a lot of time and energy in this process. Thankfully, this attitude is rare and generally does not last long. On the other hand, if you do sometimes feel this way, try to speak to somebody about this and/or try to focus on how you already managed to overcome such a situation. Perhaps you can use the same technique again or adapt it to the new circumstances.

A number of people roll out the “feel-good” slogans, talking about clouds with silver linings, problems are challenges, failures make us stronger…and so on. Many professional coaches criticise this sort of concept; my opinion, however is “if it works for you – use it!” If you want to use that as a sort of motto which motivates you…why not! Nevertheless, I suggest an alternative which is based more on facts rather than emotions or false-positiveness.

The first thing I recommend doing is turning this “failure” on its head and looking at it differently. In coaching jargon, this is often referred to as looking at something with different, or new, glasses. In other words, your perspective is slightly different. After all, so many people who are successful now – or who achieved success in the past – went through many phase of failure and disappointment. Bill Gates is often quoted as a prime example of a serial failure who kept on trying…and look at him now!

Not everyone is the next Bill Gates of course…but having said that, why not, as Bill used to rather than focusing on your disappointment, try instead to consider the following:

what did you manage to achieve?
how can you build on this?
is there something you can learn from this experience (such as, how to avoid repeating it, how to be more aware of preventable obstacles…and so on)

Once you’ve done that, why not attribute one of three medals to this achievement.

The gold medal is, of course, for when everything – or almost everything – goes according to plan.

Silver is when you are globally satisfied…but here are still a few things that disappointed you.

As for the bronze medal, that’s for when you have to cope with the situation that really brings you down.

It’s far from easy to look at a failure and to try to find something positive from it, and it’s even harder to do in the heat of the moment. On the other hand, talking with a professional friend or taking a sort of “time-out” first, can make it less difficult to do. Either way, it really is something to aim for.

Here’s an example of my own: I went along recently to the Chamber of Commerce in a town I was visiting to get as much information as possible about the companies based there, the way the local economy is developing and what kind of training themes were requested by people working there. The person I spoke to made no attempt to disguise the fact that my questions were disturbing her and that I should look at the Chamber of Commerce website since all the information I needed was there. I tried to explain that I had already looked there, found nothing and, as a result, come directly to the office…but to no avail! I was told – again – to look at the website! In short, three minutes waiting to see someone followed by a two minute “conversation”. Quite naturally, I was a little put out by all this, but I decided to put my advice to others into action; what could I learn from this?

Well, first of all, the weather was good and the walk to the building had been quite pleasant! Secondly, the bar I was now sitting in had an excellent selection of Highland Malts; it was difficult to know which to choose! Thirdly, and more importantly, I started focusing on how I had asked my questions, how I had begun speaking to the person, and so on. As a result, I changed my approach for a similar appointment I had the following day; that appointment was excellent! It lasted around 90 minutes and I gleaned a huge amount of useful information. In a way, the bronze medal event allowed me to achieve a gold medal event!

That, of course, is my story – it’s your turn now to do the same thing!

And why not ponder this quotation from the brilliant writer Samuel Beckett…“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Brilliant advice! So try not to be a perfectionist, expect to have failures and disappointments…and learn from them, so that the bronze medal becomes your stepping stone to the gold one!

bill gates