Marketing guru, Seth Godin, observed in a recent post: “If you work in an organization, the underlying rule is simple: People are not afraid of failure, they’re afraid of blame.” That got me thinking about how decision making seems to be evolving. An increasing number of managers tell me they have to push their people to take calculated risks. Between demands for instant solutions, ample media coverage of executives being pilloried for mistakes and suffocating regulations, this has become understandable.
But here’s an interesting reality: If you refrain from making decisions requiring risk, you may lose your job anyway for not making them. Companies spend a great deal of time discussing how good decisions should be made. Amazon is full of books on decision-making theories. But increasingly many cultures are becoming focused on dodge rather than do. I can understand the apprehension. No one wants to make then mistake that costs them their job. That said, success in any effort is the result of trial and error.
So here’s a suggestion. Focus on the outcome rather than the steps when managing those around you. It’s possible these days to measure and evaluate every keystroke, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it. Pretty much every one of these tools provides more information, but also has a chilling effect on trust. This can result in an environment where everyone hunkers down, dissuades the best applicants from applying and encourages turnover.
It’s been recorded that Apollo’s trips to the moon required tens of thousands of course corrections. That sounds like daily life, although not on so grand a scale. If everyone is spending their time looking over their shoulder, nothing will move forward.
Unless you’re at the top of the food chain, you’re not going to alter the entire belief system. But you can change your little part of it by allowing for mistakes and evaluating the end game rather than every pitch, snap, swing, or kick.