Inspired Leadership

Chapter 13Catch In, Don't Catch Out

Many of the good ideas that my teams have profited from have started as bad ideas. If we want to inspire our team to try to do the impossible, there will be mistakes and failures along the way. As a leader, you will have to take failure and create something useful from it.

I never compromise on our shared vision of what we can achieve, but I don't expect perfection. Mistakes are important because they tell us what we will need to change. The message that we're great has no meaning without mistakes. People are not computer programs, and creativity isn't something that you order up when you need it. Trying something means that you will get errors with the trials, and so how you deal with mistakes is vital. I maintain that no one goes through life wanting to do a bad job. But we often deal with mistakes as if they were a betrayal. When we catch out a team member, single them out for criticism or humiliation, we begin to break up the group. Also, we demonstrate the consequences of failure to others, making it less likely that they will try something new, or suggest something interesting.

This chapter is about why I think “catching in” is an important creative force, and how to make sure you lead a team in which mistakes and challenges make you stronger, not weaker. After reading it, I hope you are inspired to look at how you deal with errors ...