Some professionals believe that business should be an all-or-nothing, win-or-lose game — that only the strongest and most competitive companies should survive and prosper and that weaker or less-competitive businesses should fail. But is there a greater meaning to building a business?
Most businesses have long operated under a binary paradigm when it comes to performance management: success or failure. It’s a straightforward approach that’s easy to measure: Did we meet the deadline? Did we hit sales targets and revenue goals? However, what many professionals fail to understand is that failure isn’t always bad. While standard success metrics in the business world can provide a basis for comparing with competitors and satisfying shareholders, it’s essential to question whether traditional measures for success are sufficient.
Some of history’s greatest innovations and discoveries were the product of shocking failure. A contaminated petri dish led to Alexander Flemings’s life-saving discovery of penicillin. Art Fry needed something to keep his hymnal notes from falling off the stand during choir practice and — voilà! — the Post-It Note was born, a tiny invention that would revolutionize the office supply industry and garner dozens of international engineering awards. Success is multifaceted, occasionally surprising and (most often) arrives when you least expect it.
As leaders, we’re held accountable for our team’s performance (good or bad), but positive results stem from a motivated and engaged team. When it’s our colleagues pitching in for last-minute changes and staying late to edit presentations, we must acknowledge their hard work — even if the project missed its deadline or didn’t achieve its projected revenue. Business is inherently competitive, but it’s the people — the employees and stakeholders — who truly drive success.
Here are three strategies for elevating, inspiring and redefining success for you and your team.
- Broaden the success spectrum.
In today’s business world, complicated objectives and lists of key performance indicators (KPIs) aren’t the only way to measure success. Reputable companies with a positive corporate culture and high retention rates now value an array of previously overlooked factors, including sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and creativity. The key is to find ways to measure currently unrepresented values, behaviors and performance. When you open up your thinking about what to measure, you can better stay future focused.
Measuring these more nuanced factors might look like setting goals for diverse representation or conducting regular surveys about employees’ experiences with inclusion, for example. Creativity can be measured and encouraged through innovation workshops, idea brainstorms and tracking any implementation of employee-driven ideas. To keep up with sustainability, leaders can track waste-reduction progress or carbon-reduction efforts. With a little out-of-the-box thinking, these less concrete values can be measured, tracked and encouraged. It’s also staying tuned in with what matters to people in this competitive landscape.
- Understand that learning is growth.
“You get a brain with that set of hands you hired,” the president of one of our clients said to a group of leaders. Unfortunately, many business leaders forget this fact. Valuing your employees, encouraging their input and allowing them the freedom to innovate can lead to exponential growth.
Embrace these little wins, especially when your employees have a lot on their plate. These incremental victories can help companies stay on the right track and have a cumulative impact, acting as building blocks and reinforcing a culture of growth and experimentation. Even failure has value: Did your employees learn something? Was something new discovered? Is there a piece that could work wonders for a future process? The right mindset on failure can turn it into success.
- Be clear that questioning leads to progress.
It’s every team member’s responsibility to ask if their work and performance is meeting desired business results. If it doesn’t, then it’s also that team member’s responsibility to seek the right training opportunities to perform better. However, if you’re going to encourage a curious mindset, you must make sure there is freedom for employees to come up with ideas, to make mistakes as part of the creative process and to encourage each other to grow.
Do your employees feel safe speaking out during a staff meeting? Does every team member feel empowered to discuss company policy? Do employees know they can approach leadership with possible issues? A curious mindset is a catalyst for continuous improvement. This culture of inquiry can promote a proactive approach, ensuring that every action taken contributes positively to the organization’s success and culture.
Redefining success is crucial, especially as today’s landscape demands a more comprehensive and future-focused approach. When we embrace new perspectives and expand our horizons, we can unlock the potential for growth, innovation and lasting impact on the business. Success is not merely a destination but a continuous journey involving the entire team.
