Changing Your Perspective on Failure to Succeed – Michel Poulaert

Failure: A Step Towards Success

Michel began with a quote from Jack Welch: “Punishing failure is the best way to ensure no one dares.” In France, when you fail, you are often looked down upon, poorly regarded, sometimes even labeled as the “resident loser.” At some point, you no longer dare to be bold, you no longer dare to launch, you retreat into the ranks.

However, failure is universal: every human being fails. But the way cultures approach failure has an incredible impact on how the rest of the story will unfold. The interpretation of failure is cultural, and if it’s cultural, it can therefore change. It’s not innate to be ashamed or afraid to fail.

Failure is Information

For Michel, failure is something that doesn’t work, and then it’s information. Faced with this information, our mindset and attitude will make all the difference. If this information is interpreted as dramatic, it will be dramatic for everyone. If this information is treated as a lesson learned, as a story that allows us to move forward faster, differently, better, to make new connections, that is the optimistic stance.

A failure is information. We can’t do anything about this information; it’s completely human. We are all subject to this cognitive bias: our brain will interpret information as we feel it, as we are culturally instructed. This interpretation will make all the difference.

Learning from Failure

The big mistake many people make is repeating the same actions in the same order, in the same way, thinking it’s a sign of perseverance. However, it’s completely mathematical: if you do the same thing every time, you will get the same results every time.

How do you learn from failures? By learning the lessons from that failure: what didn’t work? Analyze, decipher, and ask yourself: what parameters will I change to get a different result? That’s what becomes interesting, and that’s what’s called the beginning of resilience, creativity, boldness, and success.

As Edison said: “I have not failed 10,000 times in creating light bulbs; I have successfully made 10,000 light bulbs that didn’t work.” That’s 19 ways not to create a light bulb.

The Example of Harland Sanders (KFC)

Michel recounted the extraordinary story of Harland Sanders, the founder of KFC. Born at the end of the 19th century into a poor family, orphaned very early, he accumulated incredible setbacks throughout his life: he became a railway worker, studied to become a lawyer, fought with a client during an argument and was ejected from the bar, bought a boat company and went bankrupt, bought a factory and went bankrupt.

When he retired, he didn’t have a penny. The only thing he still had was a chicken recipe that he distributed at his gas station along an American highway. He knocked on a thousand and one doors; a thousand times he was told no. The thousand and first time, in the state of Utah, a man believed in his project and created the KFC chain. It’s an extraordinary example of resilience.

Cultural Differences Regarding Failure

In the United States, the culture of failure is part of their DNA. The first amendment of their constitution is freedom of belief. The colonists who immigrated to this continent did so because they had the freedom to believe and to build. Everything was to be built, and from there this culture was born: “anything is possible”.

When you say in the United States “when you start something,” they’ll tell you “take your chance.” Here, we’d say “bon courage” (good luck/be brave). That’s the difference in expression.

In France, our education system teaches us to be afraid of failure. When you do a dictation, they’ll tell you that you made eight mistakes, and these eight mistakes make you fail, even though there are probably 200 others that are well-written. We focus on what hurts. When you get a report card, even when you’ve made an effort, we all remember that comment: “could do better.” It’s never good enough.

Transforming Limiting Beliefs

The good news is, since it’s cultural, if we learned it, it means we can also unlearn it and learn new operating models. Optimism can be worked on, cultivated, and strengthened. It’s something we can work on, which allows us to approach failures differently.

The first thing to do is to transform your limiting or paralyzing beliefs into a new version of how you’ve learned about failure. It’s about telling yourself: what I’ve just experienced now, or what we’ve just experienced here together in our company, we’ve experienced a failure. It’s true, we’ve lost market share. But then, it’s not about self-flagellation; it’s about asking: what lessons can we learn?

The Magic Question: What are the Advantages?

There’s a question that can be vital and can change the game in all decisions that follow a failure: “What are the advantages and benefits I gain from what I’ve just experienced?” It’s a choice. Of course, very spontaneously and intuitively, we might say, “No, it’s not possible, we’ve lost everything.” We can complain, that’s fine, but when you’re optimistic, you’ve complained, but it never lasts long.

Encouraging Initiative

The spirit of initiative isn’t something you talk about; it’s something you show. You can have good intentions and say, “Okay guys, take initiative,” and then reprimand the initiative that was just taken. There’s nothing worse than reprimanding an initiative that has just been taken.

If we encourage initiative, it also means encouraging failure, or rather, being a true mentor, a true guide for the team by saying: “Okay, well done, you tried it. Now, that’s exactly the approach. You failed, no one went into it to fail, but is it really a failure? What did you learn? How did we move forward a little?”

Serendipity: Stumbling Upon Something Unexpected

Serendipity is an Anglo-Saxon neologism that has been Gallicized. Serendipity is proving or stumbling upon something you didn’t expect while working on something else. Take the example of Viagra: before inventing Viagra, researchers weren’t working on Viagra; they were working on angina. When they tested this drug on volunteers, they realized that the side effects were found about a meter lower.

They could have said, “Darn, it doesn’t cure angina,” and lamented indefinitely. But they said, “Ah, well, we weren’t working on that, we found something else, and that’s not so bad.” That’s how the famous little blue pill was born. That’s serendipity.

Putting Failures in Context

When you’re a sales director and you have a manager who isn’t meeting their targets, it’s not necessarily because they took a risk. It’s just that the numbers aren’t there. The first thing to do is to put failures in context. Many leaders exhibit cognitive blindness: they are completely blind to the real reasons why an employee presents their failure.

In what context, relative to what, is this failure defined as a failure? Relative to an objective? Relative to what was done last year or last month? Relative to the economic situation? It could also very well be that the person concerned had a bad personal month, maybe they weren’t feeling well, maybe they have personal problems.

Trust is Central to Managing Failures

Trust is central to managing failures. How do we trust each other? How do I build this trust together? It is with this trust that the culture of failures can evolve. When we are realistic, truly realistic, and willing to listen to our employees, it may be a bad omen, there may be an economic situation, there may be a missed contact, but there may be other reasons.

What can I do to help you? What is the way, how can I contribute to help you achieve this goal? Sometimes we forget: a leader is also a mentor. If you expect your employee to achieve this goal, are you yourself in a position to achieve it? If so, what advice can you give this employee to create together a connivance, a collaboration that will boost trust, boost engagement?

In a nutshell…

Here are the main lessons to remember from this Masterclass with Michel Poulaert:

• Failure is information: it’s our interpretation that makes all the difference
• Learn the lessons: what parameters will I change to get a different result?
• Transform your limiting beliefs: optimism can be worked on, cultivated, and strengthened
• The magic question: what are the advantages and benefits I gain from what I’ve just experienced?
• Encourage initiative: it’s not something you talk about, it’s something you show
• Trust is central: how we trust each other to manage failures

As the beautiful Mexican quote Michel shared says: “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”

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