LEADERS ISSUE 08
DIGEST
15 MAY 2018
THE RISKS OF DEALING WITH
SETBACKS
Talent Management: The Quest for Recruiting Excellence in the State Civil Service
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The Anatomy of Failure
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This fortnightly publication is dedicated to advancing civil service leadership and putting it into practice contemporary leadership principles.
LEADERS
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PUBLICATION TEAM EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief Segaren Senior Editor Siti Rahanah Amat Dollah Assistant Editor Samson Tan Diana Marie Capel Graphic Designer Awang Ismail bin Awang Hambali Abdul Rani Haji Adenan
Content Partners:
CONTENTS
ISSUE 8 I 15 MAY 2018
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Failure Is Ugly But Can You See The Beauty Behind Failure?
Do We Have Room To Fail?
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Talent Management: The Quest for Recruiting Excellence in the State Civil Service
Learning From Mistakes: They’re Life’s Greatest Teachers
The Anatomy Of Failure
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Inspirational Quotes
THE LEADER’S DIGEST IS A FORTNIGHTLY PUBLICATION BY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE OF SARAWAK CIVIL SERVICE FEATURING ALL THE LATEST SURROUNDING THE TOPIC OF LEADERSHIP. THE PUBLICATION ALSO FEATURES SPECIALLY SELECTED WRITE-UPS RELATED TO EACH THEME OF THE ISSUE, THROUGH ITS CONTENT PARTNERS.
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Talent Management BY DATU ABDUL GHAFUR SHARIFF CHAIRMAN, PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
The Quest for Recruiting Excellence in the State Civil Service
INTRODUCTION It goes without saying that no organisation aspires to recruit underachievers, poor performers, or those with the wrong attitude. Instead, organisations want to recruit talented people who can contribute to their overall success. In the footballing world, what would Barcelona be without its star striker Lionel Messi or Real Madrid without its talismanic captain, Cristiano Ronaldo? Can Khairul Hafiz Jantan (Speedy Jantan), Malaysia’s new sprint king, bring honours to the country like Usain Bolt for Jamaica? Star performers are always in demand either in the sports, business, or public sector organisations. Since people are acknowledged as the ‘powerhouse’ of the organisation1 the search for quality managers and employees into the Sarawak Civil Service (SCS) is one of the most important functions of the Sarawak Public Service Commission (SPANS). In the 1960s, there were plenty of jobs in SCS relative to job seekers in the public sector where literally-speaking jobs were scrambling for takers. In the 21st century the scenario is the obverse. The number of job seekers as evident in the e-Recruitment data number in the thousands and jobs for the taking are scarce thus making entry into SCS a competitive process indeed. Bringing in talent into the SCS is therefore a necessity as part and parcel of talent management.
Talent management is spelt out in the SCS 10-20 ‘White Book’ where “new initiatives” are said to be critical to power future success via talent and highly-competent people. The so-called “new initiatives” encompasses a four-dimensional talent management framework and a talent-management plan. The ‘White Book’ defines talent management as “an (organisational) strategic and deliberate process in sourcing, attracting, selecting, training, developing, retaining and promoting employees”. In the global HR domain, ‘talent management’ encapsulates the selection, development, and retention of individuals who are seen to be of particular value to the organisation2. Acquiring, hiring and staffing people in organisations are necessary processes but inadequate. The hiring process has to be complemented with training and development of people as well as a concerted effort in retaining them. However, talent management goes beyond the selection, development, and retention of people. Talent management includes performance management, management development, succession planning, and organisational capability. However, talent management begins with recruiting excellent people into SCS.
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WHAT IS TALENT?
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Talent can mean different things to different people. To Emmet Murphy, a key expert in talent management, talent equates achievement3. According to Michael Williams, a talented person is someone who consistently shows exceptional ability and achievement over a spectrum of activities or within his specialised field of expertise4. While some are focusing on ‘gifted high-fliers’, others will concentrate on the collective capacity of employees in the organisation, for example, high-performing teams. The creation of a ‘talent pool’ is imperative especially in identifying potential leaders who can make a significant impact on strategic aspects of the organisation. In the words of Tan Sri Hamid Bugo, former Sarawak State Secretary, “the government is looking for people with potentials rather than routine-type officers”5. Thus, talented people in the eyes of Hamid Bugo are officers who are dynamic and always challenging the status quo and not the “business as usual” type of managers.
Talent management (TM) is defined as, “anticipating the need for human capital and then setting out a plan to meet it” (Capelli, 2008:74). Such a plan will involve the need to develop talented individuals. High-potential employees typically undergo career development program that involves education, executive mentoring and coaching, and job rotation through important assignments. Competencies demanded of such stars include good oral and written communication skills, high emotional intelligence, and a talent for leadership. While the problem of retaining talented people is not much of a worry in SCS the cause for concern is much more on an ageing civil service where retirees are being engaged on a contract basis for years on end. One of the problems may be attributed to poor succession management.
In the context of SCS, an officer who scores high marks in his annual performance assessment report (LNPT) for three years in a row may be considered a talented person. A civil engineer in the Public Works Department (JKR) or a Creativity and Innovative Team (KIK) that receives a national or international award for a creative and innovative project is another example of talented individual or an excellent team. Evidence of recognition for excellent achievements is therefore imperative to single out talented people from the mediocre ones. However, all of us should be aware of the flipside of talent known as the ‘failure of talent’.
THE FAILURE OF TALENT While acknowledging the significance of talented people in managing and leading organisations, it must be made known that talented people are sometimes being derailed either by their own success, circumstances, or situations. The failure of talent happens when achievement and ambition are being turned into arrogance, ego trips or hubris; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; and a sense of invulnerability and infallibility will eventually lead to recipes for disastrous outcomes. Talented flops include footballer Paul Gascoigne, golfer Tiger Woods, politicians Richard Nixon and Tony Blair, and many more. According to one author, individuals who suffer from derailment appear more susceptible to stress and its sinister tendency to fuel their dark sides (Irwin, 2009:16). The characteristics that can derail talented managers include being insensitive; abrasive and intimidating; being cold, aloof and arrogant; betraying the trust of his followers; overly ambitious, playing politics and always trying to move up; inability to delegate and build a team; and overlydependent on other people (Whetton and Cameron, 2011:307). 4
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Succession management is a major determinant for organisational success. The ideal is to have people in the right place with the right capabilities at the right time. Managing continuity has two-pronged objectives of developing individuals and meeting the human capital needs of the organisation in the future (Mayo, 2001:142-8). Top positions in the SCS is being mapped out by heavyweight politicians who have a say on who they want to work with. Such political intervention may upset calculation which is based solely on seniority or “next-in-line” criterion. Be that as it may, SCS should focus more on building a culture of achievement so that high achievers in the second echelon can be singled out to bring greater success in the future.
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BUILDING A CULTURE OF ACHIEVEMENT In order to become a world-class outfit, the SCS has to build a culture of achievement. The Malaysian Olympics Team in Rio tried to achieve what other past teams had never done before i.e. to land the first gold medal for the country. So much effort, energy and emphasis is being put together to achieve the ‘golden’ feat. Such high aspiration has also been demonstrated in organisations that are pushing the envelope to achieve greater heights of success. In order to be a high-performing organisation, not only must the people push themselves to the limit but they must jettison their comfort zones and take risks to achieve what they want. These traits of achievementoriented people are described by David McClelland in his classic research on the needs for achievement, affiliation and power. According to David McClelland the need for achievement is defined as “behavior toward competition with a standard of excellence” and the characteristics displayed by those oriented toward achievement are tendency to raise the bar, high level of commitment to complete tasks, stay focused, and a strong desire for feedback. Members of SPANS need to imbue this need to build a culture of achievement especially in recruiting excellent workforce into SCS.
CONCLUSION Thus knowing the advantages and disadvantages of talent and the new domain of talent management, surely Members of SPANS and senior officers who are involved in the recruitment process can apply hands-on their knowledge on talent management to select the right people during interview sessions. The selecting teams should not only be competent interviewers but taking the cue from the literature on talent management they must also be respected as “talent masters”. Armed with a total mastery on talent management, they can select not only the people with skills and competencies, but also people who can make a great impact on the respective ministries, departments and local authorities that they are bound to serve. In promotional interviews, members of SPANS must be able to identify the candidate’s unique blend of traits, skills, judgment, relationships, and experience to lead organisational teams once they are promoted to senior positions in the bureaucratic hierarchy. The task of recruiting excellence in SCS is a tall order indeed taking into consideration the strategic transformation agenda of SCS as contained in SCS 10-20. Nevertheless, the talent management framework together with the TM Plan need to be revisited on a periodic basis to take stock of inadequacies, for example, how long does it take to complete the five phases of the new recruitment and selection process? Another pertinent question to be asked is why do officers who have had attained Master and PhD. degrees also fail the promotional assessments? Unless and until such questions are resolved talent management is still a far-fetched phenomenon.
Notes 1. Grout, Jeff and Perrin, Sarah (2004), “Recruiting Excellence: An Insider’s Guide to Sourcing Top Talent”, McGraw-Hill International (UK) Limited, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. 2. Chartered Management Institute (2013), “Managing Others – The Organisational Essentials”, Profile Books Ltd., London. 3. Murphy, Emmet (2007), “Talent IQ”, Platinum Press, Avon, Massachusetts, USA. 4. Williams, Michael, “Transfixed Assets”, People Management, 3 August 2000, Vol.6 Issue 16, p.28. 5. The Sarawak Tribune, “Deliver quality and efficient service, civil servants told”, 22 April 1997. References 1. Mayo, Andrew (2001), “The Human Value of the Enterprise: Valuing People as Assets – Monitoring, Measuring, Managing”, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London. 2. Irwin, Tim (2009), “Derailed – Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership”, Advantage Quest Publications, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. 3. Whetton, David and Cameron, Kim (2011), “Developing Management Skills” (8th edition), Pearson Education Ltd., Harlow, Essex, England. 4. The SCS 10-20 Action Plan: Transformation & Innovation Initiatives (2012), Lee Ming Press, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
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FAILURE IS UGLY
But Can You See The Beauty Behind Failure? BY MAJURA PERASHOT
It has been nearly 10 years since I left school, but the memories of it are still fresh in my mind. I remember how nervous I was and how my stomach churned at the thought of failing one of my exams.
Failure can be ugly and messy, but that is perfectly okay.
It was just an exam, but the fear of failing was so strong that I would have preferred to curl up into a ball and hide in the garbage room forever rather than face the embarrassment if I were to flunk that paper. Being brought up in a competitive environment where failure was not an option, I felt as if I had lost the ability to function like a normal being. I kept myself busy with “Plan B” – how to turn myself into a ball, tree or plastic bag (as Katy Perry has suggested) and never be heard of again. And again I repeat, it was just an exam.
There’s beauty in failure. 6
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It was then, that I noticed how unprepared I was to face failures in my life. I also wondered if everyone felt the same as I did.
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It has always been a struggle for me to face failure. However, I have been lucky to be constantly surrounded by a great group of people who have never ceased to help me get over many failures in life.
Failure is like a good gym instructor who trains us to get fitter and stronger. It is hard work at first, but once we see the results of our training, we will be able to proudly stand in front of the mirror and say “Hey, this is worth it!”.
As years have gone by, I have learned ways to cope with such circumstances. I have also learned through failure that no one is truly an island, because there will always be someone willing to guide us out from the deep pit if we only seek them.
In the process, we will face all kinds of challenges which will perhaps stall our efforts and frustrate us, but if we are able to look beyond the obstacles and set our eyes on the goal, it can be a strong booster to push us forward.
THE BEAUTY OF FAILURE As much as we may hate it, we have to learn to accept the fact that failure is part of being human. We make mistakes and we learn from them. Without failures and the pains that come with them, we would never understand or perhaps remember valuable lessons. We may not be able to comprehend the lessons that failure is trying to teach us the very moment we fall, but I believe when the time is right, we will be able to look back, see the bigger picture, understand why we failed and see how it has affected our life, perhaps even in a positive way. Of course I am not trying to imply that we must always fail first in order to learn, but it is important to learn how to embrace failure and see it as an essential part of our learning curve. Failure is like a mother who wakes us up from our ‘dream’ and pushes us to get out of our comfortable bed, sending us to school for a good education. Failure exposes to us the mistakes that we have been doing, and opens up more doors of opportunity to explore different ways of doing things, and to start new things. My favourite example of how failure can create new prospects is from the woman of style who has changed the world of bridal fashion, Vera Ellen Wang (particularly because I adore her dresses!).
Like a loyal friend, failure is always on our side. It helps us to grow and encourages us to move out of our comfort zone. Until we experience failure, we will never see how far our talents can go and what great things we can achieve. Never cease to seek advice when facing failure. With the right guidance from the right people, we can learn a lot about how to get up from a fall.
WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE A FAILURE Always remember that you are not alone and never ever punish yourself for your failures. I used to feel like I was drowning whenever I was on the verge of a failure. I hated that feeling, but I used it to push me to recover quickly from that failure. Remember that each failure is leading us towards a greater moment. Whenever failure comes and visits, greet it with a smile and thank it for helping you move on to the next step towards success. Don’t rob yourself from the accomplishments that are awaiting you at the other end, and never let the high price of failure stop you from overcoming it.
Wang failed to get a place in the US Olympic figure skating team. She was also rejected for the position of the editorin-chief at Vogue magazine. As a result, she decided to join the fashion design industry. Today, she is a prominent figure in the multi-billion dollar industry and women all over the world continue to admire her creations.
Majura constantly seeks for fun new ways to help youth discover their leadership potential.
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Do We Have Room To Fail?
Why failure is so important for long-term success The prospect of failure strikes fear in the hearts of most of us. We usually do anything we can to avoid the prospect of failing. If failure seems to be inevitable, we often try to hide our role in it or downplay its importance.
Why? Fear of failure is a deeply engrained psychological drive. Originally, fear kept us safe from sabre-toothed tigers or enemies from across the seas. In the modern world, the equivalent of the sabre tooth tiger is anybody who holds power over us and can threaten us. Even though they may not literally eat us, contemporary tigers have the power to inflict deep psychological wounds.
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BY ERNEST ANTOINE
In organisations, we may instinctively fear bosses who can hire and fire us and make our lives difficult. Less powerful, but equally fearsome, is the prospect of public humiliation. At work, we may go to great lengths to avoid serious mistakes in case our bosses and colleagues find out. If they do, there is usually a stern word from the boss and colleagues may whisper behind our backs. This is equivalent to being rejected by the group. Group membership gives us comfort, safety and reassurance. At a deeper level, it also gives us a sense of belonging, purpose and identity. Failure can put all of these at risk. Remember Steve Jobs? Even he was rejected by Apple, the organisation that he co-founded. Nobody is spared!
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The culture of losing face Malaysians are very good at avoiding making mistakes for fear of losing face. It is so important for us to be approved by our bosses, peers and team members, we avoid taking risks that may result in failure. An emerging leader in a large multi-national company in Kuala Lumpur said: “I am not prepared to share my failure with this team.” He considered that such an action would result in loss of face and loss of respect from his subordinates. He added: “If my boss finds out, that could be bad for me.” Another leader in the financial services industry said: “I would lose the respect of my subordinates if I were to share my failure with them. I can’t afford that, as they look up to me to show them the right way.”
" The concept of loss of face is
founded in deeply held cultural values in Malaysia.
"
This is based on the value of respect for authority which, in practice, means we don’t do anything that might upset our bosses. We value our relationships with our colleagues and want to be part of a group, so we don’t disrupt these relationships through an embarrassing or silly mistake. We prefer stability and seek to avoid failures that will put this at risk. In this context, leaders who wish to embrace failure as a learning opportunity will do well to understand the psychology of fear. If they can understand how cultural values prevent people from acting in innovative ways that could possibly fail, this may also help their support for teams and organisations that really need to change to succeed in the modern world.
Leaders LEAD the way Asking leaders to embrace failure as a learning opportunity is easy to ask, but hard for them to do. In a rapidly changing, highly competitive and deeply unpredictable world, leaders have to take every opportunity to stay ahead of the game. Learning from failure is one such opportunity and one which is increasingly used across the globe. Kodak, Nokia, Enron, Lehman Brothers and many others no longer exist, in part because their leaders may not have paid enough attention to managing and learning from failure. Broadly speaking, failure is the gap between objectives and outcomes. This can occur for individuals within an organisation such as a salesperson. Or failures can occur within teams, departments, functions or the whole corporation. No matter where they occur, they are all learning opportunities. Companies that have learnt from their failures are usually still here to tell the story. One such company is Domino’s Pizza. Declining sales prior to 2010 prompted CEO Patrick Doyle to go on national television in the US to declare that they their products were not meeting customers’ expectations.
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" Mindfulness will help you
They even ran ads that quoted dissatisfied customers, such as “Domino’s pizza crust is like cardboard!”
develop a learning mindset in relation to failure.
But they didn’t stop there. They worked on improving their recipes, involving customers along the way. Customers returned, sales improved and so did profitability.
" If an organisation wants to
remain relevant, failure must be embraced as a learning opportunity.
"
For this to happen, starting from the top is essential, as leaders have to show how it is done for others to follow, particularly in a hierarchical culture. Leaders have to unlearn their beliefs, values and behaviours about failure. They then have to build a reservoir of inner strength, to help them to confront failure not as something that is going to destroy them but something that is going to make them stronger. Leaders need to take deliberate steps to learn from what happens, not in terms of how to avoid failure categorically, but how to learn about what factors contribute to potential success in a dynamic and complex world. In this rapidly changing world, we often can’t know in advance whether something will succeed or not, so we need to experiment, adapt and innovate in order to find out. The process of experimenting, reflecting and revising our practices will help us to develop new and potentially more effective beliefs, values and behaviour, based on actual experience and confidence, rather than fear of failure.
Be mindful Mindfulness is one of a range of useful techniques for leaders to use in order to learn from failure. There are three easy steps – firstly, step out of the failure experience and observe your own thoughts, feelings, sensations and impulses about what has happened; secondly, don’t judge them but just observe with openness and kindness to yourself and others; and finally, be curious and show a lively interest in the failure and your own reactions to it. 10
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Culture of learning from failure
Once leaders have developed a willingness to learn from failure, they are ready to take their team with them on this journey. Culture is the beating heart of an organisation. For anything to succeed, the heart must be in the right place. This applies especially to an organisation’s willingness to learn from failure.
" It may appear counter-intuitive
to think about failure as an opportunity to learn, and this is why organisations have pushed the idea under the carpet for so long.
"
A learning-oriented culture at the organisational level will help individuals and teams to learn from failure as much as anything else in the workplace. Leaders can take a number of steps to build such a culture. Even though our formal schooling may have been based on a simple ‘success or failure’ kind of thinking, our modern workplaces cannot continue this approach. Harnessing the diversity of different ideas and disciplines available to us today, combined with the confidence to continuously try new things, learning from experience and expanding on the successful experiments, are what will help organisations to prosper. •
It is important for leaders to explicitly state that failures are learning opportunities
Indeed, they can communicate the message that we can often learn more from our failures than from our successes. Learning is the key for reaching for something beyond ourselves. Even if we fail, the experience can make us stronger for the next challenge.
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We can grow as people and teams if we can reach the outer limits of our capabilities. The converse is working within our comfort zone and not reaching for the stars. Re-framing failure as a positive learning experience will encourage people to openly speak about what is possible rather than what is easy. •
Leaders should formalise systems and behaviour that encourage open discussion about failure
The way to do this is to schedule times for reflection by teams and individuals as part of regular meetings. At the start of these sessions, mindfulness steps, mentioned above, can be practiced. In this context, team members should be encouraged to share their insights as others listen carefully, without judgment, but with an openness to learn. Professor Francesca Gino, from Harvard Business School, has found that reflection is now commonplace in many successful organisations. She notes that when sessions are led by a facilitator rather than a leader, everyone is then free to share their thoughts and feelings about what has been learnt, but some people within teams can be natural facilitators, so if regular sessions are held, internal facilitators are often suitable. More experience in facilitating contributes to greater expertise in this area too. •
Effective leaders encourage people to reach for new challenges
Team members should be encouraged to identify their strengths and opportunities for new development in readiness for the next challenge. Leaders may also invite team members with complementary skills to work together on the next assignment. Leaders and more experienced team members acting as mentors and coaches for less experienced team members will also encourage them to reach for new challenges.
Ernie is a psychologist specialising in global leadership. He engages leaders to understand themselves more deeply and to make a positive contribution to the world. He believes the hierarchical style of leadership found in Malaysia and many parts of the world is no longer fit for purpose. He helps leaders to become relational, connected, authentic and inclusive.
Finally . . . In conclusion, leaders have a key role to play in reframing failure as a learning opportunity. They should lead by example and then build a resilient organisational culture that is open to learning from unsuccessful outcomes. These are significant challenges as they go against the grain for most Malaysian leaders. You may be able to think of a few enlightened leaders over history who have proclaimed their failures and explained how they have learnt from them, but they are rare indeed. In the public eye, it is almost unheard of for Malaysian leaders to say their actions have not delivered the intended result and they will therefore try another way. For a Malaysia that succeeds in a challenging and dynamic modern world, our leaders need to show courage, strength and integrity through portraying failure as a critical learning opportunity.
Most people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. – Napoleon Hill
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Learning From Mistakes: They’re Life’s Greatest Teachers
BY SANDY CLARKE
Beethoven – arguably the most influential composer of all time – was once told by a music teacher that he had very poor ability. British wartime Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, is said to have been a poor performer at school (the great orator also suffered from a speech impediment in his early years). And that legendary maker of dreams, Walt Disney, was once fired by an editor of a newspaper – for not being creative enough. These are just a few examples of people who went on to great things after suffering setbacks and making mistakes along the way. Isn’t it amazing when we look at successful people and discover just how many times they failed, how many times they were criticised, and how often people wrote them off? When we look at our own lives, how much do we hold onto our own past failures or beat ourselves up because we have made mistakes? If we take the examples of the people mentioned earlier (feel free to include Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and JK Rowling into the mix of those once considered hopeless), there is one common trait that links them together. 12
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Not only did they make their fair share of mistakes – they were actually okay with doing so, and simply picked themselves up and carried on in the pursuit of their dreams. Successful people also tend to look at failure in a different light, viewing mistakes as teachers, each one providing its own unique lesson. As the inventor Edison put it:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” To err is human As with so many aspects of life, we can use the mistakes we have made in the past as tools to hold us back, or we can view them as teachers that show us that we need to take a different route in order to achieve whatever we are working towards. Sometimes we get so impatient, as though we should be able to recognise our faults, put a stop to them immediately and let our lives continue happily ever after. Unfortunately, life doesn’t quite work this way.
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How many of you have walked into a gym and become a weightlifting champion within the first week? Most of us would ridicule the idea that anyone should think that someone could expect such progress to come so quickly – so why do some of us feel that other aspects of life should be any different?
Baby steps During my stay at a Buddhist monastery in London a couple of years ago, a monk addressed the problem. He said:
“When it comes to making changes for the better, we expect so much of ourselves too quickly. If the results don’t come now, this instant, we lose heart and view ourselves as hopeless, but that needn’t be the case. Say you get angry 46 times in one week. Some might say that you should stop being angry altogether, but who can sustain this with much success? Instead, we should look at making gradual changes. If you can work towards being angry 44 times in a week, this is progress. After that, you keep going, reducing it to 42, 37, 30 and so on. A jug of water fills drop by drop. You get there eventually, and if you lapse, no problem – just keep chipping away.” So many people have the view that mistakes and failures are things to be embarrassed by and therefore should be avoided altogether. Of course, where possible, mistakes should be avoided, but unless you’re flawless, not making mistakes is out of the question. Instead, the best way to use your mistakes is to follow the threestep process of: 1. 2. 3.
acknowledging any mistakes forgiving yourself for making them learning as best you can from the experience in an effort to reduce future occurrences
The only person who can build from your mistakes is you. Similarly, the only person who can forgive you for your mistakes is yourself.
Me, myself and I… and a mirror By adopting the idea of seeing mistakes as teachers, and by realising that no one else can or may hold you to account but yourself, you’ll find that you have much more space to grow and cultivate the sort of changes that you want to make within yourself. By the same token, it’s also important to realise that other people can and often do make mistakes, and sometimes we can jump on the judgemental bandwagon as though our own conduct, thoughts and views are superior to everyone else’s. Indeed, there are so many examples of when we justify our own actions but criticise others for making exactly the same choices. How many times have we all heard (coming from ourselves): “Well, yes, I know I did that as well – but that was different”? To quote the philosopher Plato:
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Breathe in, breathe out We all have our struggles, and we are all fighting to make sense of our own reality while trying hard to work with everyone else who has their own perceptions of how things are and how life should be. By allowing everyone – including ourselves – a little breathing space when it comes to flaws, mistakes and failures, we might just start to find that, little by little, progress is made and that we start to become a little lighter, with less stress and pressure pushing us around trying to chase our tails like dogs in a never-ending and exhausting circle. What’s more, when we start to open up to the idea that we are likely to make mistakes and accept that this is okay to do so, from here, we actually start to make fewer mistakes, because we have begun the process of gradually ridding ourselves of the tension and fear that cause mistakes in the first place.
Sandy is a freelance writer based in Malaysia, and previously enjoyed 10 years as a journalist and broadcaster in the UK. He has been fortunate to gain valuable insights into what makes us tick, which has deepened his interests in leadership, emotions, mindfulness, and human behaviour.
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The Anatomy Of Failure
BY DR EUGENE Y.J. TEE
Using Emotions To Bounce Back From Adversity And Develop Resilience
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour. —Truman Capote"
Think of a success story. This could be an autobiography of an entrepreneur, for instance, who realised their ambitions and dreams despite their humble, challenging beginnings. Such stories are enticing because they make us realise that these remarkable individuals have been beset by challenges and adversities before tasting success.
J. K. Rowling found success with Harry Potter after her stories were rejected by no less than nine different publishers. Her accomplishment is made more inspiring when she revealed that she battled depression and struggled with financial difficulties long before she saw her books line the shelves in stores worldwide.
Importantly, they remind us that failure and success are oftentimes two sides of the same coin. It is when we overcome trials and tribulations that we experience that distinctive, rewarding sense of personal satisfaction that comes from our successes.
The mercurial Steve Jobs was asked to leave Apple by the Board of Directors in 1985—from the very company whose fortunes he would dramatically reverse upon his return in 1997.
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And Akio Morita, whose company once sold a rice cooker that had the tendency to overcook rice—decided that his company should focus on manufacturing electronics instead. A smart move, given that Morita’s company, Sony, has since established itself as a household name and eventually expanded to related industries.
Failure is not the opposite to success, it’s a stepping stone to success. —Arianna Huffington
The emotions stemming from failure teaches us resilience Our experience of failure is often a negative one, and so, we avoid speaking about our own mistakes and errors altogether. Failing, however, teaches us valuable lessons, telling us where and how we can better ourselves—should we decide to try again. Successful people, our role models included, are no different. It is their resilient attitude towards failures that sets them apart from those who never catch a glimpse of the finish line. Successful people are resilient towards failures—they don’t avoid or shy away from failing. Rather, they use failures to propel themselves closer to their eventual success. Resilience is a skill that can be developed, but usually not through advice that take the tone of, “get over it.” To be resilient, we need to understand the components of failure.
Failure rouses emotions—negative emotions that diminish our determination and damage our selfesteem. Think of the last time you failed at something. You may have made a bad business or personal decision, acted impulsively, spoken too hastily, or messed up a project. Think about how you felt during those incidents. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to list emotions such as anger, sadness, shame, disappointment or regret.
Self-anger and self-pity
Realising that our emotions are at the root of our failure experiences is an important first step towards developing resilience towards them. Negative emotions tell us, “You tried, failed, and that hurt. Don’t try that again.” Different negative emotions have the same way of conveying this message.
Shame
Anger Anger stems from the impression that one has been unfairly treated, unfairly judged, or simply offended. Anger experienced from failures may be due to the perception that the failure was caused by external parties or factors.
We may even direct feelings of anger and sadness toward ourselves. In the case of self-anger, we blame ourselves, pondering our actions and the decisions we should have made instead. When we experience self-pity, we think of ourselves as being the victim of unfavourable circumstances, seeing forces beyond our control as continuously being obstacles to our success.
Shame is felt when we judge ourselves to have fallen short by our standards and expectations. We wish to see ourselves as being capable, success-worthy individuals—but our experience of shame during failure casts doubt on this. Shame tells us, “You’re not good at this anyway.” Giving up seems a lot easier and safer than subjecting further challenges to your self-esteem.
As such, anger often encourages blaming and fault-finding, along with hostile responses to people who we think are responsible for contributing to our failings.
Sadness Failures often involve the experience of losing something of value— finances, reputation or time, perhaps. We feel sadness upon the realisation that what we have lost is difficult to reclaim. We respond to prevent further losses by shutting down and deciding not to try again. Sadness effectively weakens our willpower and persistence.
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Regret The decisions we make have the possibility of coming back to haunt us. Regret is the emotion we feel when we make decisions that have led to our failings. Regret causes us to question our own choices, and inflicts distrust on our ability to make good decisions. What then, do resilient individuals do differently in the face of failures and such distressing emotions? Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy, authors of Bounce: Why Things Bounce Back, highlight that resilience is determined strongly by mindset, particularly how one sees the need for change and persistence of ambiguity in today’s environment. It helps to look at the flipside of failure, and the emotions associated with success—to understand what drives resilience. Resilient individuals are those who are able to learn from unpleasant emotions resulting from failure. At the same time, these resilient individuals cultivate powerful, positive emotions that help them move past their failures. Feeling good is not just a pleasant experience. Positive emotions can help restore our sense of self-worth and confidence when we are beset by failure. Resilient people learn from negative emotions, and use positive emotions to recover from failures.
Reflecting and remembering why we do what we do energises our intention to try again. Resilient people have an inner conviction and belief rooted in passion, fuelling their courage to face current, and future adversities.
Pride Pride is experienced when we accomplish something noteworthy and are recognised for it. In a sense, pride works to counteract shame, by reminding us that we have qualities that are recognised and appreciated. Pride also tells us that our failures are not caused solely by our inadequacies. Pride picks us up when we fall, assuring us in our abilities and potential for future success.
Self-compassion Self-compassion refers to a kind, non-judgemental assessment of ourselves. Often, however, we find it easier to impart kindness to others than toward ourselves. Perhaps we think that being self-compassionate is a sure-fire way to complacency. In fact, being self-compassionate provides the necessary emotional first aid when we experience failure. By being self-compassionate, we are reminded that everyone, even our role models, have faced failure. We can then choose to stop criticising ourselves, and be more encouraging of our subsequent efforts.
Hope Some of these positive emotions include: Passion The dogged determinism that embodies resilient people comes from a deeply ingrained sense of purpose, and seeing one’s role as meaningful and significant. 16
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Hope thrives during adversity, challenges, and during failure experiences. Indeed, adversity and challenges are needed for hope to arise. Hope is the perennial positive emotion—it endures in difficult situations because it first tells us that there is a way out of this difficult
situation, and second, that one has the capacity to overcome one’s failures. Hope gives us the way, and the willpower to overcome our failures.
Bringing it all together At any point in time in our lives, we will face some form of failure. Business leaders make decisions that result in financial and reputational losses, the recruitment officer makes a failure of judgement on a new hire, and the fund manager makes a shortsighted and inaccurate projection of short-term financial trends. In all these instances, failures are accompanied by unpleasant emotions that serve to tell us honestly yet painfully, that we could have done better. Being resilient consists of two important halves—by first learning from our negative emotions, and second, by cultivating more positivity in our professional and personal lives. The best among us have failed, but have managed to stay resilient because of how they’ve chosen to view, understand, and respond to the emotions that arise during failure. Top 10 Ways To Be A Resilient Leader The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success. — Paramahansa Yogananda 1. Treat failures as learning opportunities The next time you experience failure, try treating them as opportunities to better yourself. Failures are part of your unique success story. Remind yourself that every failure is a step forward towards eventual success, and can be faced in the spirit of inquisitiveness and courage. What went wrong and what can I learn from this all?
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2. See negative emotions experienced from failure as normal Negative emotions serve to protect us from trying things that may cause us to experience more distress. Seeing negative emotions as a normal response to failure helps cultivate a healthy attitude towards them. Negative emotions make great disciplinary teachers but terrible motivational speakers. 3. See positive emotions as an antidote to overcoming failure Positive emotions encourage, empower and re-energise our efforts. Treat positive emotions as antidotes to negative emotions experienced from failure, and cultivate ways to experience them more frequently in your life. Positive emotions also have a restorative effect on our health. Developing resilience by cultivating positive emotions is beneficial for our mental and psychological well-being. 4. Know when to step back and recharge Failures can be overwhelming, and each of us have different limits on how much we can take when faced with failure. Know what your limits are—recognise when you are making impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decisions and actions, and take time to recharge. You will be in a clearer state of mind to respond to, rather than simply reacting to your negative emotions.
5. Seek social support You probably have a network of friends, or family members that you can relate to, who trust and accept you as you are. Asking for support during instances of failure is not a weakness—your emotions are telling you that you could use help recovering from failure by connecting with those who are genuinely concerned for you. 6. Remember that very successful people fail too A success story that includes instances of failure is going to sell better than one where very little mention of adversity or challenges are made. Read the autobiography of someone you consider a role model or wish to emulate. Doing so helps you recognise that failures are normal—and necessary experiences on the road to success. Good autobiographies also elicit inspiration—another powerful positive emotion to help you build resilience in the face of failures. 7. Reignite your passion Reflect on your role and responsibilities. Why do you persist in doing what you do? Thinking about the core meaning and significance of one’s job, role and responsibilities helps remind us of what we are passionate about. Such self-reflection questions may even trigger an impulse to seek out and explore passions closer to your interests.
8. Take pride in your skills and accomplishments In the face of failure, it is easy to fixate on our deficiencies and weaknesses. Try listing out your strengths and successes that have led you to this point, and remind yourself that one failure is not a generalised, negative judgement about you as an individual. 9. Be self-compassionate when experiencing failure Part of being self-compassionate is to recognise that other people also fail, have bad days, and are more likely to exaggerate their accomplishments than advertise their failures. Treat yourself to a pick-me-up after experiencing failure, recognising that you have done all that you could, and that you will live to try to again another day. 10. Stay hopeful Think of helpful and encouraging responses to your failure experience. Generate an action plan that helps you overcome this failure, or to learn from it. When you have a plan, carry it out. Your action plan can give you that hope to bounce back from failures, since you have created the means and kick-started your motivation to overcome your setback. Dr Eugene Y.J. Tee is currently Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, HELP University. He teaches and conducts research in the area of emotions, especially where it concerns organisational performance. Eugene’s folder of rejected academic manuscripts, more than 50 of them, reminds him that failure is a necessary part of continuous, lifelong learning. It also makes every accepted manuscript a reason for throwing a party for his colleagues.
A Mistake Repeated More Than Once Is A Decision.
- Paulo Coelho Issue 8 I May 2018
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16 May... Happy Trainer's Day! th
Dedicated to all Trainers of the Institute.
There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. - Edith Wharton
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- Inspirational Quotes -
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TURN a setback into A comeback!
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