I don't dwell in failure now because I've learned that every single failure I've ever had in some of them have been dooses and potential career enders I've come out of them if nothing else More empathetic toward others.
Yeah. Well, can you tell us a little bit more?
I'll tell you about one.
Yeah You're listening to women at work from Harvard Business Review.
I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo We're here with our former co-host and friend Sarah Green Carmichael who's one of the very few people We feel comfortable enough revisiting our professional failures with but we also know she is going to push us She's going to test our thinking.
Yeah and bring in research findings and build up to some aha moments.
Oh my god No pressure guys.
I'm so glad that when you thought of failure you thought of me No, we just knew that you would bring you would bring the honesty but you'd also bring the humanity I'll do my best.
So why are we revisiting the times something's gone wrong or if we felt like it had or someone told us it had Failures usually subjective and not one person's fault But the ways people tend to treat women too often set us up to fail or leave us to believe we have only ourselves to blame There are unrealistic expectations.
There are nonexistent or useless feedback There under estimation of our competence Causes so much stress and anxiety that we actually do sometimes underperform But everyone fails we don't want you to feel insecure about your failures.
So we're gonna talk about hours We're gonna talk about some practical matters too like what to do when you're on a project that Looks like it's doomed or if you're reporting to a boss who standards are just too high So Sarah not to put you on the spot, but feel free to go first Well when I heard about the topic I tried to think about how would I define a failure because I think it's something bigger Than just a mistake.
I think it has to be something where there are many either failures of judgment or Process mistakes that add up to something that is deeply unpleasant and hard to reverse or Maybe a missed opportunity something where we fail to live up to our potential.
Yeah I like that distinction between Mistake and failure because I can think about lots of mistakes.
I've made every day Yes, like in the last hour, but those aren't failures, right?
And actually when I think about one particular failure, which I'll share in a moment But is it was a series of mistakes that led to something that was Unfixible and for me my filter was I should have known better and that was the moment when you know I got that gut punch of recognition.
I knew that was failure.
Yeah, so it could tell us about one Okay, so the story that really came to mind as the most obvious example from my professional history is actually what I did right after leaving HBR in 2018.
So I Consider in some ways my decision to take a job at barons To be a failure and that There were red flags that I overlooked And taking the wrong job is not something that is easily rectified.
You can't just sort of Hit update or refresh and like reboot that.
You know, it takes a while to get out of it.
So just to sort of Set the scene a little bit.
If we go back in our minds to The fall of 2018.
I've decided it's after almost 12 years at HBR.
It's time to move on Mm-hmm.
I call up an old boss of mine who's you know at that point was the editor-in-chief of barons and We sort of proceed From there.
I don't do a lot of I'm not like shopping around for other jobs I just sort of call her we sort of go from there You guys throw me an amazing goodbye party that's very emotional for me And then I start working at barons and like it just becomes clear that this is not a great fit for me That on paper it all made sense, but the reality is very different It's before COVID and I'm working remotely at a time and in a team that's not really used to having a ton of remote workers So I'm very isolated and so then As I'm starting to sort of get this feeling of like hmm maybe maybe Maybe I won't be her very long But the thing I can do what maybe I've set out to do At that point my boss who who was like 90% of the reason that I took that job tells me that she's moving on And that's sort of when it feels like okay.
I just really has not worked out as I had planned From there.
I started to have actually like a pretty negative impact on my mood I was like just working all day in my home office and Watching game of thrones at night.
I was sort of in a COVID lockdown before anyone was in a COVID lockdown I'm just like all over the old day Um, and and it was it was challenging I ended up Fortunately quickly finding a new job, which is my job at Bloomberg opinion where I have now been for four years And it's been a great fit and I'm very lucky But I do remember that when that news became public, you know The news that I would be leaving parents to join Bloomberg There was like a media industry publication that ran a headline like you know green Carmichael out at barons in less than a year Oh, and I sort of was like wow.
I didn't know anyone was paying attention and this is awkward and that makes it sound really bad So anyway, I think that like to go from that really wonderful goodbye party to green Carmichael out at barons in less than a year really sort of put Hmm put some perspective, I guess in my mind of like wow that didn't work out as I had hoped Sort of rode off into the sunset and fell flat on my face Well to me The important thing to learn was not to ignore those red flags Exactly in hindsight.
I realized like you know if you're gonna make a big career decision Maybe give yourself more than one option, you know is that realistic?
I mean Do a little networking yeah, like how how would it have potentially gone differently if I had come to you Amy Zuh Amy's In a more proactive way and saying you know what I really think given that I started at hbr when I was 25 Mm-hmm, and now I'm like looking into the future and wondering where am I gonna be when I'm 40 Maybe we should have a bigger conversation about what else is out there, you know instead of Going off into my corner and being like I think I need to leave I don't want to tell any of my like mentors or tell anybody I'm just gonna kind of quietly hatch this plan by myself.
You just like out the back door And we're like wait come back.
We have a good party But I hope you but I hope you know that there are people who would put you Before any career organization right That's so nice to hear Amy.
Thank you. I feel like I see that now Right, but I didn't know that at the time Well, one of the things that occurs to me is that you were being driven by fear Right the fear of having failed your colleagues by making the choice to leave There was this idea that we would be disappointed or try to convince you otherwise or that it was somehow A failure to even leave and I think when I do have a failure I often Make the mistakes that lead to that failure out of fear of failing right like this It's this moment of like I'm trying to protect against Something and so therefore I don't see the red flags.
I don't make the right calls my judgment is a little bit cloudy Also though I feel like One of the things I learned from this is like it's totally okay to pull the rip cord like when I was suddenly in that situation I'm like why am I working here the person I came here to work with has gone my days are isolated and and weird and None of this makes sense.
I was sort of was like I'm pulling the rip cord I'm not staying here to serve out my year Right, maybe that's an outdated rule and I I feel like There is some strange strength that comes from like yeah, you can make the wrong decision It can go very badly and then you actually can change your situation um, and it's Not easy.
It might not be free to be very costly, but You can upend the apple cart if the situation calls for it one of my failures was also a career move And it was to accompany where I just didn't understand my role.
I didn't understand How I fit in never felt uh, I'm gonna smile at you because you know what company it is um, I'm not gonna say where I was, but I had a role of you know with editorial Authority I was making decisions about what we'd get published and what wouldn't get published And I was working on a multi-part package and A colleague a younger colleague not as experienced came to me and said hey, I have an idea.
Why don't we I saw this thing in the report that we're working with Why don't we break that out and publish it and I I kind of looked up with when I said sure sure sure sure go ahead And when it published it was lawsuit material And I did all of those things that you do when you realize that a bomb just went off right I thought you know not my fault I wasn't the one who had this idea and then I you know Nine seconds later.
I thought totally my fault My colleague asked me I Owned the responsibility for this.
I should have known better.
I should have paid attention Of course that had I paid attention.
I would never have said go ahead.
Mm-hmm I then marched over to the many people I reported up to and said my fault I am deeply embarrassed.
I am sorry for the trouble.
This is causing and it caused a lot of trouble mm-hmm and This is no one's fault but mine and I I don't know What to do about this Help you know how do I help make this better?
Yeah, and then I would I went home and drank a lot So Did you feel better having messed up?
I don't I don't end up I guess I'm better is so far away from what I was feeling at that time Mm-hmm.
I mean at that point I just really had to think about What is the right thing to do here because I have to be able to live with myself right?
Yeah, I'd love that Prie mean like listening to Sarah's story and like okay pay attention to the red flags pull the record when you need to and one of the big things I'm taking away from what you're saying is once you recognize that failure Own it and act according to your values because that's one of the things that I think Happens with failures as it challenges our identities as competent women.
I mean I think of you as someone with excellent judgment I have excellent judgment.
I just didn't exercise it.
I didn't pay attention.
My crime was not paying attention.
Yes, right Not poor judgment.
Yeah, I think there's sort of two things that I take from your heroing story Yeah, I mean, I'm still having nightmares and I'll probably have one tonight, so thanks a minute I think the way that you described Taking responsibility is one of the reasons people love working for you.
Mm-hmm is because A different boss could have thrown that junior colleague right under the bus And so the fact that you didn't do that that you sort of looked your own Heart in the eye is big deal And I also think the way that you went to your then the people higher than you in the hierarchy and said How can I make this better?
I'm sorry for my imparting this like that is something that a lot of people don't do They seek to sort of quickly shift the blame elsewhere or to minimize what they've done.
That's really hard to do Well, because you can't do fight or flight in that situation and that's what every instinct in your being tells you to do Yeah, and so not only are you owning up your exercising a key emotional intelligence go of like emotional self control Which is recognizing I feel terrible But even though I feel terrible I can't give into that I can't do the things that would make that feel better immediately which is to lie and pretend I didn't do this thing and someone else was more of fall Amy made us view this, but I think that one of the reasons You are from the outside Able to walk in and take ownership of a mistake in that way is because At least from my perspective, there's not any doubts about your competence and so Clearly the situation you describe as an aberration But I feel like a different person or maybe a person in a different place in their career might have a tougher time Having that conversation because they're worried like oh, you know my bosses were gonna think I'm completely incompetent Or that they don't have credits to burn or their boss has unreasonably high expectations Okay, but in the emotional scramble that followed I wasn't able to take even a quarter step back to think about competence and reputation all I could do was to think How did this happen How did I make such a bad call and then I realized I never looked at the list I never looked at this thing that's gonna get us in trouble and I didn't give it for seconds thought Which is a terrible Fluff yeah, not paying attention when you're in charge of those details But can we talk about that too because I think that this is something that a lot of people feel especially women is that and I feel this more now that I'm a working mom I don't have attention for everything in life even important details sometimes and I forget things in ways that I used to never And it's because I'm remembering so many more of them like right I'm probably on a given day say before I had kids.
I remember to hundred things now I'm remembering 150 things But I'm also forgetting 20 things right and you are Amy are in like a senior leadership role where people probably come to you Dozens of time a day asking can I have a decision on this can I have a decision on that can you weigh in over here?
right, so when one is stretched to a point where Simply keeping up requires an enormous amount of Velocity mm-hmm How do you make sure that you are paying attention to every single detail you change the frame?
So there are a couple things you do and I did this because I never wanted I will never make this mistake again I'll make I'll make new mistakes horrific mistakes, but you know, don't be no um One thing is you ask yourself does this really have to be done right the second mm-hmm And you ask that of the person who sent you I mean sometimes people will send me articles at nine at night and say hey I need you to give this a read before Work begins tomorrow and I have said I can't yeah, I can't I will do it by 10 a.m Yeah, and just I said a different boundary around it But if your values are that you're going to do your job to the best of your ability all the time Then you have to make sure that you're enabling yourself to do that.
So there's nothing wrong with saying I can't get everything I thought I would get done done By close of business.
So here are the things I'm going to put off till tomorrow Send out a note saying I know I promised this to you this afternoon.
I can't get to it until tomorrow You know chances are nothing's going to happen right you just resetting expectations Don't let it just go into the void of silence Because people make up their own stories.
Yeah, yeah, I'd be responsible I think about the failures other people have come to me with and so many times it's I was moving too fast I was moving too fast exactly.
I think that's I think that's the Real challenge is like can you slow down and I do have a little bit of a trick Especially at like three o'clock when I start getting decisions coming toward me I get like really anxious and wound up and start overthinking and I'm like oh no no no no Okay, like slow down can this wait till 9 a.m.
Do I need a good night's sleep?
And if it's a decision that has to be made how do I bring in someone else to help me make a good judgment call How do I slow down the process a little bit?
How do I just really sort of lay out the pros and cons?
Just monitoring my own Energy and reaction in that moment can help me avoid that failure of Moving too fast self-regulation Yeah, I agree with you guys and I see the value of slowing down But one of the things I like about the way you're framing this is that it is a question of can this wait till tomorrow at 9 a.m Because sometimes it really can yeah, and then it's like well okay part of the value here is the speed itself right and a Kind of 80% right or Media-ocard decision right now is worth twice as much as a decision tomorrow, you know, right?
But you have the discernment to make that call you know when no decision is worse than a sub optimal decision You know that at the outset the other thing you know Is how to separate the urgent from the important Your urgency is your urgency.
It's not everyone else's urgency So you know not to let people impose their urgency on you, right?
And that that was a really hard lesson for me to learn because I want everyone to think well of me Yeah, so I needed to make sure they were all happy because I was a service bureau, right?
Yeah, we're not service bureaus.
Yeah So I want to hear Amy G's failure Oh so many came to mind um, but the one that really I always think about when I think about a moment where I just felt like Oh, I messed this up big time was when I was working for management consulting firm and I was asked to put together a a proposal for a client including the pricing aspect and I had not done the pricing aspect before but I had been Sort of shadowing my boss while he did it quite a few times and I Wily underestimated the cost Including the cost of a third-party vendor who we had to pay so when it came time for us to build a client My boss was like wait what this is this is what we're building the client.
I was like yeah And it was the order of magnitude off so it meant We had to pay that third-party vendor and meant we had to swallow the cost It had a real implication and I I think partly it being about numbers I had messed with my head a little bit because I pride myself as someone who was good at math in my you know school days But it's not something I gravitate toward and I also Understood there's some stereotypes that women aren't good at finances.
I was trying to sort of counter that and that had made me really anxious The other thing in retrospect and this is actually just occurring to me as I'm talking is that I think I also Was really trying to please the client and I think I came down to this lower number because I was like they'll be so happy about this and I don't think I knew how off I was It was it was bad.
It was really it was bad and I remember actually they did not let me price things for a while Which was fair that was like a completely fair reaction um I mean then I was so careful just went over and over every single number once they allowed me to do it again To be sure I had it right and I probably aired the other way which was to overestimate Which I learned actually was a better approach With consulting because then when you bill them less than what you would estimate it They're happy and you're still getting paid for the work you did Yeah, Amy as you're telling this story It sounds like you were working on this pricing project almost alone like why didn't someone look over your shoulder and say That doesn't seem right.
It's a good question and I'm not I don't remember exactly whether like My boss it might have been a situation where my boss was doing what Amy B did in her failure Which is was like not checking closely enough being like oh sure sure Amy's competent like whatever like she'll she'll get it right And I I was over confident in retrospect about my ability to do it So I'm sure I projected that I did not need help that I was that I was like oh yeah I've seen him do this a zillion times I've I've been on a similar project.
I know how much that cost I wish I could go back and like remember exactly where the numbers got Messy But I didn't feel like I needed help and and then that That was something I took into the next time I did a proposal was Really asking for people and my boss was at that point looking over my shoulder for sure But I also was asking peers who are learning the same skill How are you doing this what are you putting in For these numbers.
How are you making the calculations?
But it wasn't it really wasn't a math error.
I think it was a judgment error Which is what elevates it from a mistake to a failure because of course it would have had consequences regardless But if I could have just been like oh I switched to these numbers Like that would have been a very simple thing to sort of recover from and yeah And You know one of the consequences also was that we couldn't really eat the cost completely So my boss then had to go back to the client Explain what happened admit I had made a mistake right and renegotiate and agree to sort of meet not in the middle But we the client was willing to give a little bit more than and we had a price to that's awkward That sounds really painful.
Yes, and then I had to work I mean it was an ongoing project so I had to continue to work with them.
Oh God I'm hearing a sort of common thread between the two stories that you guys have shared Which is that people pleasing is the path to unhappiness You know you cannot give everyone a quick answer all the time you cannot give everyone a super low price all the time Right that way lies failure and pain The other failure that came to mind is sort of the opposite in that it was something I had done a zillion times Like I had a speaking gig this summer It's something I've done a bunch of times So I just sort of started to cut corners a little bit like I didn't spend as much time prepping I didn't find out enough about the organization There were a couple snaffos with timing and coordinating with the client But I was like oh, I've done this it'll be fine and then I got up on stage and within five minutes I was like oh this is not going well like just saw the like flat faces the wrinkled brows of like what what is she talking about And I I've been very lucky in my speaking work in that I've been getting amazing feedback the past few years It feels like I really found something I'm good at and to have that just like moment where there was no turning back I'm on a stage in front of hundreds of people.
I know it's not going well What do I do you run you just Did occur to me like I could just sit down and cry and this would all be over yeah, no Um, but there's so many steps along the way That I now see where I was either cutting corners Not paying attention to red flags because there was some issues like about the agenda and where I showed up in the agenda That didn't make sense about how I was going to be introduced.
I didn't even ask. Oh, how are you?
Who's gonna introduce me?
Where's my clicker? I didn't like all those things that I had just sort of let slide because I thought I'd be able to wing it I didn't And and the climb was unhappy fair enough and it was the first time I really got the feedback of like oh, yeah That didn't go well.
Oh and actually this was this was how I knew in my got it didn't go well But you'd try to do the like it was probably better than I thought But what I knew was someone posted on LinkedIn later There were three speakers at this event and they had put you know said to the first speaker like You were amazing.
You blew our minds Um, and there was I can't remember what the second was and then it was like Amy Gallow it was interesting to hear you talk.
Oh No, you imagine how I was like you were there too And Amy yeah, you got the participation prize like I was like oh Yeah, it was it was bad um, but you know you learn from it, but can we just also You give a lot of speeches some of them are gonna bomb.
Yeah, you know And sometimes I think we're so hard on ourselves and we're always looking for a lesson How could I have a way to that how could it have gone better and it's sometimes It just doesn't work out.
Yeah, you know, well, and it's it's so funny.
I watch I've been watching all three of us do this is like when one of us tells the other we're like it's okay Like it happens, but that's not the self-talk.
No, right? There's no talk like you know There was part of me that tried to be like it's okay.
It's okay. I remember texting my friend I think that went really really poorly and she's a good friend because she was like oh yeah, what went wrong Like she wasn't like I'm sure it was better.
She didn't do any of that because It's okay to just say I failed like and I did like yes, some are gonna bomb, but they're not bombing because One out of ten they're bomb they're bombing because I didn't do the things I know to do yeah I have a question and it's slight shifting of gears.
We mostly have talked about things where we can pinpoint a place that we failed We have not really talked about a group failure where we were part of a bigger project and maybe it was an entirely our fault And then like the thing Didn't work although a maybe maybe yours there would like it sounds like there were maybe more No, that was me, but I have been part of a group project that I remember I came into this company and everyone said you know This is a 22 million dollar project.
It was a website and I remember looking at what they had so far And what they had so far with a blank page and a weird drawer that opened and closed that made It made that sound and just have a million for it to open and 11 million And I kept saying what's that for and the developer responded Whatever you want So I remember I just hopped on a train that's about to tumble off the tracks and into the ravine that's how it felt Yeah, so can we talk like what do you do in that situation if you sense the impending failure coming in your Worried you can't get the train onto the right track or then after the derailment You know the big boss comes in and says why do we spend 22 million on that stupid drawer or whatever Then there's all the the finger pointing of the gang that can't shoot street like how do you stop it from happening if you can and how do you then respond To the situation.
Well my case. There was no way I could stop it.
Yeah, I was just sort of brought on board Yeah mid-trip stop this metaphor But you know, I don't know what I did was I just told the truth.
I just said yeah, I never quite Understood where all that money went and Yeah, by the time I got here.
There was nothing I could do.
Yeah, yeah, you know one of the things that I I don't think I've personally done but I've seen others do when you're on the sort of syncing ship of a product is to say Well, let's step back and remind ourselves what we're trying to achieve right right and just like agree because Ideally you agree on a measure of success upfront, but let's be honest how many times do we really do that or or the measures really meaningful?
Right, and it's just to step back and say okay What are we trying to achieve are we achieving it if we're not what adjustments do we need to make and you know There is that some cost fallacy.
It's what prevents people from asking you know, are we doing the way I think here?
Is this really what we want to be putting out into the world?
Yeah, asking those Questions that are just going to up and the entire project that takes a lot of courage to ask those questions also challenging though because there are times when You have a team full of people every few weeks someone asked that question.
Yeah, and as a result the project Really moves very slowly or in a zigzagging fashion, but I think the other thing is to make sure it's clear We're getting credit or blame together right right because I think the reason so many things Just sort of go on and on and on is no one's willing to say this drawer is useless Right because then it's like well who's at fault is the developer is a person who you took over if you ex it's engineering Right.
Yeah, and there are a lot of reasons projects go off the rail My goodness.
Yeah, I do also think that usually the person who Really bluntly points out what's wrong is not thanked for their contribution.
No Yeah, but at the same time it's really valuable or to be the person who's like you know what the reason this is late is because Bertha keeps turning in her stuff late Everyone else in the team is on time and that Bertha Like she's late and disorganized and it's affecting all of us And I think we're taught not to throw each other under the bus But there are times when I do think accountability is important There has to be some way to kind of be honest about those things too Oh, but that I cringe at that.
I mean I I'm a fan of direct honest conversation You make it more tactical baby But I cringe at the like Bertha's not handy than the thing because it chances are it's not the Bertha's lazy It's not that right there's some dynamic going on Bertha's boss isn't allowing her to spend enough time on this Maybe she doesn't actually know what the goal of the project is and she's just sort of doing her part Willie nilly right who knows and so I think there has to be sort of a collective discussion of what is happening And how do we add it back on track or What what needs to change and it can be okay to say you know Birth things seem to be coming in late.
Why is that? There's rarely ever one point of failure exactly It's so much easier to think there is oh my gosh it would be easier if Bertha would just get her act together You know okay wait.
I have a question. Yeah, you said there's rarely one point of failure But then in your own story you were like no, I was the point of failure But that wasn't a project that was it But I'm just I think that we're very We seem to be more comfortable blaming ourselves as a single point of failure than this fictional Bertha And like look Bertha's a made-up person.
She's not a friend of mine.
So like well, she isn't now That's your shirt No, but that's a good point Sarah because like I think about the speaking gig that did not go so well I want to own that and then I also Think about The many other people who are involved who did not help to set me up for success I also think that we're kind of trained Not to assign fault but to extract lessons How do we how are we not going to make this mistake next time right yeah?
We're uncomfortable pointing fingers and I'm kind of glad about that though I wonder if maybe it also allows repeat offenders to continue offending Well, or I think if you know why someone on the team keeps missing their deadlines Maybe you're like okay, this person needs to be managed differently We need to have with that person a daily standup or we ask for a progress report or you know whatever I feel like if we're too hesitant to point fingers and you never get to what the solution is yeah Yeah, yeah At least for me personally just airing what what I'm observing as going on can be so Freeing from the anxiety the other thing I when I'm on a team that's starting to fail as I feel person responsible Even if I'm not leading that team I could be the smallest player on that team and I'm like why can't I make this better?
Why can't I save this instead of doing that what if we were the truth tellers of This is not going well, right?
There's this dynamic. I don't know exactly what it is But something's going on and we need to talk about it Yeah, and starting the conversation that begins with can we all agree this is not going well?
Mm-hmm. I want to ask you about that alignment because I think there are times when Either my standards have been higher than my managers and I feel like this is a huge failure And my boss is like no, no, no, it's going really well.
We're learning so much And I I think the flip side also though can be very threatening if your boss seems like their standards are unreasonably high And you're constantly falling short that can feel dangerous like I'm going to lose my job So I'm just wondering like if your standards are not aligned with your boss How do we deal with that?
Yeah, it's a conflict question kind of yeah totally is a conflict over what success looks like Yeah, yeah I think that one of the mistakes is that we in all sort of workplace dynamics is this belief that we have to have a shared world view Right to move forward right we don't we have to just agree to move forward and sometimes You and your boss may not see eye to eye And that's okay as long as that's not happening Every single time I think your question about like the unreasonably high standards From a boss and how do you do that?
I think one of the things You have to unhook yourself from defining success or failure based on their standards because you will drive yourself up a wall Trying to meet those standards and you'll hold yourself back from taking the risks You probably need to take in order to succeed.
So you have to tell yourself yes.
Okay. I will try to please her X number of times, but I also have to have my own standards and evaluate against that And if you're if your goal is to make no mistakes and just please your boss If you have a bought an exacting boss you're setting yourself up to fail Right in center.
I mean, you know, it's funny.
Do you say that any me because I went back to that episode?
I think 2018 about perfectionism as part of my preparation for this episode And um Alice boys had a point that I actually don't think I understood five years ago in that episode That was about not internalizing other people's standards Yeah, and I listened to it again, and I was like oh That's what you're sort of hearing that in a different way now And I think it goes to that that you don't want to internalize the unreasonable standards of other people They're not your standards.
You can figure out how to work in that environment Well, just creating a healthy little wall there between you and those standards I think that's right.
I hope a little bit of detachment.
Yeah Well, and I think that detachment also helps when Others think you've failed and you haven't you don't feel that same way is that that wall can be really helpful again No, you don't have to have a shared world view to move forward Can we talk a little bit about recovering from failure?
Yes, let's do it. Okay. Do you want to start Amy B?
Well, these starts with scraping yourself off the floor You know, I don't know I am no expert at the bouncing back thing although If I think back to the story I told about my big failure Where I published something I shouldn't have published I did it by just I know myself and I know that I can Linger in the sort of the self-flagulation portion of recovery for a long long time and recognizing that wouldn't help me And so I really focus on what I could do to make this problem go away So working with our attorney Really articulating to myself What I'd learned from it and honestly this was where I just had to sort of fake it till I made it I really had to act like It was all gonna be okay until I felt it was all gonna be okay.
Yeah, that's interesting And I think there are two aspects important aspects to the recovery one is redeveloping your confidence and And then also recovering your reputation For me, I think about this speaking gig issue of like I needed to acknowledge That I played a part in this other people played a part as well and I also Had to like create systems.
I actually made a checklist of the things I didn't do in that situation that I was like I'm not gonna skip these things next time.
Yeah, and so I actually now have a system so that that won't happen again And my next one was much better.
So that was the sort of recovery for my own confidence and my own systems but I also then had to Really own up to the client for my part in it and And apologize there was risk in apologizing because it was admitting to the failure Mm-hmm, and yet it felt like the right thing to do because I Didn't want the client to think that I thought that was good work right and I didn't give a litany of excuses And just say you know, I'm sorry and and she owned up to her part in it as well, which I think was really It was helpful for us to both sort of recover From that moment and I think it helped my reputation I just want to hear you say that about apologizing because I know it feels risky and it feels really hard At the same time it can be so refreshing if it's heartfelt and sincere and actually makes people want to work with you more I think and also, you know, you're talking about how refreshing it is Sarah But you know the emotional gymnastics you have to go through to keep making excuses to yourself Mm-hmm are so much more exhausting than the catharsis of apology Well, and think about it from the other person's point of view too It's like what is more annoying than someone who's messing up and keeps sort of trying to weasel out of it Well, how do you trust that person?
Well, it in it damages the trust.
Yeah, right? That's right Well, and that that's an interesting frame because failure in a way is a breach of trust, right?
I trusted you to do this and you didn't do it Mm-hmm, and so now you have to restore that trust and I think as we've mentioned earlier It's so much easier when you have a strong reputation, right?
Like that consulting underestimating the project I did have credits to burn.
Yeah, right? I had done great on other things in my work with them So it's a little harder when you feel like you're you're on the nice Yeah, the one point I wanted to make about balancing back is I think especially in business and management The business and management thought leadership world we talk a lot about resilience as like a personal characteristic like it sort of like grit or perseverance, but actually there's psychological research on resilience as a kind of group activity Like if you are a resilient person You probably have sick ice you are not on thin ice you are on thick ice You probably have a maybe a supportive family You have maybe some financial resources to help defray whatever the Financial cost of of your failure You have psychological resources because maybe you were raised in a loving home And I don't think that we think about that enough.
I think we talk a lot about sort of bouncing back As if you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but I actually think that some things about You know your support network your mentorship your colleagues Actually even having things outside of work that bring you joy hobbies friendships relationships that give you meaning so that even if work is actually going really badly You still have a strong sense of self I think all these things also contribute to resilience and your ability to recover from failure.
Yeah I think about do you you guys know what a balanced board is it's sort of like yeah like a almost like a the top of a skateboard on this like cylinder and you're trying to balance without the tipping and we have one in my in my family I was had the reputation of being the worst at it like really terrible I could like we would time me I couldn't be up on it for more than three seconds and I was determined this summer I was like I'm gonna figure this out and my daughter looked at me one time and said it's not about balancing It's about recovering from imbalance And that completely changed my perspective and I feel like in a way we're talking about is not about whether you fail or not You are going to fail.
It's about how you recover from the failure that determines how you're seen how you're perceived And how you feel about your own confidence.
Yeah trying to avoid failure will only stunt your career growth That's right also you know what you're gonna feel bad Yeah, there's just no way around it but in that in that bad feeling there's also a lot of self reflection.
I hope yeah I think about Kristen Neff's research on self-compassion and there's like three pieces of it one is acknowledging the feelings exactly What you were just saying Amy B of like I feel bad.
I feel anxious about this.
I feel embarrassed whatever you feel the second is acknowledging the humanity right I'm not the first person who failed at this I certainly am not the last person who's going to fail at this.
We all make mistakes We all have failures and then the third is talking to yourself in a kind way Like the way you might talk to your friend and about the mistake they made So instead of like how could you do that?
You're such an idiot of like All right, like what do you want to do next?
Right? How do you want to recover from this?
And I think recognizing that that bad feeling is a signal It's a data point the universe is sending you you feel bad because something needs to change.
Yeah That's our show. I'm Amy Gallo and I'm Amy Bernstein To keep rising in our careers We got to let go of unrealistically high standards for ourselves That's one of the main messages from Alice Boys in the 2018 episode that Sarah mentioned perfect is the enemy Perfection has been far too much time and effort trying to avoid any mistakes So they'll avoid making decisions they'll avoid taking action and a lot of that is because Ruminating over mistakes is so psychologically painful You can find that episode and get more of Alice's insights by scrolling in the podcast feed to season two episode five And if you've never scrolled that far back you'll see a lot of quality stuff in our archive Govabras HBR has more podcasts that help you manage yourself your team and your organization Find them at hbr.org slash podcast or search hbr in apple podcasts spotify or wherever you listen Women at works editorial and production team is Amanda Cursey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Toby Mac, Rob Eckhart, Ericka Trucksler, Ian Fox and Hannah Bates Rob and more compose the steam music Thanks for listening e-moss anytime at women at work at hbr.org
