The European Business Review - July-August 2019

http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com 53

Being honest and upfront about

your failures – and those of people

around you – opens the way to

actively learning from failure.

of organisational agility. This takes as its inspiration the
work of software developers in working as teams to identify
bugs and to sort them out.
“We aim to make mistakes faster than anyone else,” says
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek.^9 At NASA employees are
encouraged to experiment and learn in an environment
where it’s safe to fail fast.^10 At the American Red Cross
leaders encourage employeesto learn from theirmistakes,
discusschallengesopenlyanacceptfailureasa valuablepart
of theirstrategyimplementation.“Ihaveseenmoreleaders
failandjuststicktotheirstrategybecausetheydon’twantto
admittheymadea mistake”,saysGailMcGovern,president
andCEOof theAmericanRedCross.^11
ResearchbyJulianBirkinshawof LondonBusinessSchool
andMartineHaasoftheWhartonSchoolencouragesexecutives
toconsidertheirreturnonfailure.“Failureis lesspainfulwhen
youextractthemaximumvaluefromit. Ifyoulearnfromeach
mistake,largeand small, sharethoselessons,and periodically
checkthattheseprocessesarehelpingyourorganisationmove
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skyrocket,”sayBirkinshawandHaas.^12 Theysuggestthateach
failureis anopportunitytochallenge“yourdefaultbeliefsand
adjustaccordingly”andshouldbefollowedbyexaminationof
whatyouhavelearnedasa resultaboutcustomersandmarket
dynamics; the organisation’s strategy, culture and processes;
yourselfandyourteam;andfuturetrends.
Beinghonestandupfrontaboutyourfailures– andthose
of peoplearoundyou– opens thewayto activelylearning
fromfailure.Thechallengeforleadersis tobetterunderstand
theirownrelationshipwithfailureandtousethatknowledge
tounderstandthefailuresof others. Onlythenwillfailure
reallybeputtowork.

AbouttheAuthors
RicardoVianaVargasis a specialistinproject
managementandtransformation.Overthepast
20 years,hehasbeenresponsibleformorethan
80 majortransformationprojectsglobally,with
aninvestmentportfolioofover$20billion.He
is theexecutivedirectorof theBrightline,a PMIInitiative
together with leading global organisations dedicated to
bridgethegapbetweenideasandresults.
Edivandro Carlos Conforto, PhD is a
research award winner and thought leader on
organisational agility and agile innovation. His
work help leaders transform their organisa-
tions to succeed in today’s ever-changing
business environment. He is the head of strategy research
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thought and practice leadership through academic and

professionalresearch.

Tahirou Assane Oumarou, MASc, P.Eng,

PMP has over 15 years of experience in leader-

ship roles, civil engineering, and project

management. As director of operations of the

Brightline Initiative, Tahirou oversees the activ-

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leadership, networking, and capability building. From 2013

to 2017, Tahirou worked as the deputy director of infra-

structure and project management group in the United

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References

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   FDQFHOODWLRQWRGLVFRXUDJHQHWÁL[
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• digital - innovation/

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