After You Fail: A Leader's 5 Step Plan to Fail Forward Sample

Reframe Failure as Feedback

At this point, we’ve accepted responsibility and implemented changes to safeguard the future. Now it’s time to reframe our leadership failures and change how we see our mistakes.

Not all mistakes involve people. Innovative leaders take risks, and all successful businesses are used to snafus and understand that errors are a sign of progress.

In one of the biggest projects of my career, I directed the design and build of a new distribution center and warehouse management system. The stakeholders held me and the project team to the usual requirements, but they were most concerned about uninterrupted customer service.

After working with consultants and researching our options, we decided to run parallel inventory systems: the old and the new. We’d do a soft launch of the new system but keep the old running as a backup. Our consultants advised us that this exact configuration hadn’t been done before, so there was some risk, but we went for it.

I met with the stakeholders and presented the decision with strong reassurances. When we launched the dual system, we quickly realized that it caused us to lose visibility of our inventory. We had no choice but to move everything into the new warehouse and go live on the new system without our backup plan.

I dreaded telling the stakeholders and was surprised when they took the news in stride, but they reiterated that the problem couldn’t affect our customers. Gratefully, when we cut over to the new system, we had glitches and pauses, but no hard halts to service.

When we held our post-project debrief, my bosses reminded me that I need to disclose risks and not downplay them with reassurances, which was an important learning point. The team and I didn’t regret our decision to run parallel warehouses because it gave us a deeper understanding of the system’s limitations. We were also grateful to work for stakeholders who gave us the latitude to make decisions—and mistakes.

Success doesn’t teach us about limitations; our mistakes do. Taking risks opens the door for innovation and failure, and as leaders, we need to teach our employees that it’s safe to welcome both.

In today’s focus verses, we see how failure as feedback echoes the rhythm of confession and repentance God offers us. When we acknowledge our sin and turn away from it, we can reset our course. When we make a mistake, we can choose to be strengthened by what we’ve learned instead of held back by what we did.