The Three Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made in Business
In my previous article, I talked about how we all make mistakes in business, and if someone says they haven't, they're almost certainly lying. Either that (P.S. there's no 'either that', they're definitely lying), or they haven't tried hard enough to fail, which says even worse things about their qualifications to be a leader. In fact, it says very bad things about their qualifications to be a human being. All human beings fail, all leaders fail; it's how we learn, grow resilience, and become better at what we do.
Unless you're me, because I, as anyone who knows me or has ever worked with me will tell you, have repeatedly put myself out there to fail but have never managed to do it. Go figure. It just goes to show that there’s always at least one exception to every rule… (clears throat) …yeah, right… who am I kidding?
In life, in business, and in leadership, I’ve made plenty of gold medal standard mistakes, errors of judgement, bad decisions, and monumental ‘wtf was I thinking’ cock-ups.
Did I learn from them?
I think so. I certainly hope so. Although, on a few occasions, I had to repeat the same mistakes just a couple more times to be absolutely sure the learning had gone in.
Here are today's top three. Ask me again tomorrow, and my top three might be different. It's a bit like when someone asks you what your favourite car or sporting memory or who your favourite significant other is; it constantly changes. Although I'm only kidding about my significant other (just in case she's reading this.)
Here we go.
My biggest mistake Number Three…
I once found out about a charity-based project that I really wanted to get involved with. It was innovative, if it had come off it would have made a big difference to the community, and because I'm one of those people who, when I've got an idea in my head, needs to make it happen come hell or high water, I immediately threw myself and my people behind it.
In other words, I diverted my software team away from their revenue-generating work and onto the charity-based project that generated no revenue at all. My software team warned me this was not a smart idea, but I didn't listen.
In the end, the charity-based project didn’t come to fruition (just in case you missed the clue in the ‘if it had come off’ sentence), we lost money, my team got frustrated, and I learned the lesson that I should always listen to the people I put in post because I pay them to do a job and they're much better at it than me.
My biggest mistake Number Two…
Was keeping someone in a job far longer than they should have been there. I think this is a mistake a lot of people make because, let’s face it, getting rid of a team member is not something anyone enjoys doing (I'd hope), so we tend to find lots of reasons to give that person more time, more coaching, and more chances to avoid doing it.
But here’s the lesson I learned: if it’s not working, it’s never going to work. You tend to know pretty quickly when you've made the wrong hire, and the biggest mistake you can make for yourself and the person involved is to retain them in the post. Be fair, bite the bullet, and do both you and them a favour. It won't feel like it at the time, but it’s always the right thing to do.
My biggest mistake Number One…
This isn’t a million miles away from my biggest mistake Number Three, which just goes to show that lessons sometimes take a while to sink in.
I'm very much a B2B person. I know B2B, I'm comfortable in B2B, and B2B has worked out very nicely for me over the years.
So why did I invest money in a B2C thing without doing my due diligence?
I’m going to blame it on ‘being an Activator’ (in CliftonStrengths speak) which means when I get an idea in my head I've got to do it, and I don’t stop to take other people’s opinions on board before I do.
The result was that I lost a bit of cash. Not a huge amount, but enough to teach me the lesson that I should always seek out people I trust to be a sounding board and talk through my ideas before taking action. Holding fire long enough to get someone else’s opinion would very possibly have prevented me from making my B2C mistake. If nothing else, it would have reminded me to do my due diligence and find out it was a bad idea before I opened my wallet.
So, my question to you now is, what are your top three biggest mistakes and what did you learn from them? Usually, we're too busy doing what we need to do to get through the day to look back at our mistakes and acknowledge how they've contributed to making us better people and better leaders. Taking the time to remind ourselves of our failures and recognise how they've helped us grow can be a very useful thing to do.
Please don’t send them to me, though. I’ve got enough mistakes of my own to look back on!