It’s inevitable you’ll fail at some point in your career. A scary prospect in itself, how you manage it will reflect your leadership skills and determine how quickly you bounce back. Molly Raycraft explains how best to deal with a bad situation.
On paper, it was a brilliant campaign. But your vision just hasn’t delivered the traction it needed. You’re so consumed with prepping yourself for the aftermath that it’s likely you’ve forgotten something – failure is not a new phenomenon. Rather than recoil from the mistake, addressing it head on can create an opportunity to increase your credibility, integrity and reputation. Here’s some guidance on how to fail the right way.
1. Realise failure
There will be a point at which you realise a project isn’t working. As a leader, it’s your job to say that time’s up, and say it sooner rather than later. There’s no point investing resources, time and budget into a project that simply isn’t going to deliver significant ROI. So while you shouldn’t be scared to take a risk on a new project, equally you shouldn’t be fearful of ending it. It’s about finding a balance between the two.
Ensure you give a project enough time to blossom and recognise that how long that takes will depend on its strategy. For instance, an ABM project will need significantly more time to bear fruit than an email campaign. Some of this will come down to gut feel and experience, but it will certainly help to set basic criteria for success and determine how to measure it before you start.
2. Tell the board
It’s probably the most dreaded aspect of failure, but it’s imperative you inform the board. While it’s tempting to hold your nerve and hope things improve, the quicker you discuss failure, the softer the impact.
It’s common to shield stakeholders from seeing failure, but it doesn’t allow space to learn or react in time. Don’t do it; it’s likely to haunt you in the long run, denting both your reliability and credibility. Being transparent at the low points of your career will paint you as a trustworthy member of the business.
“Be clear that you’ve thought about the implications of what’s happened. It may be embarrassing to talk about how you’ve failed but if you get through it quickly there’s often fewer business problems as a result.”
3. Engage your team and company culture
You shouldn’t protect your team and the wider company culture from failure. It’s vital they’re exposed to company downfalls to understand the organisation, its values, how it ticks and the implications a failure can have. Employees will appreciate and respect your honesty. This will also reinforce a shared goal; employees will feel valued and are more likely to want to be proactive in the company’s recovery. Although it’s likely those that worked closely on the failed project may experience a dip in morale, which as a leader you should monitor and manage.
“It’s about having leaders whose teams are comfortable pushing back on them and knowing there will be no repercussions. Charismatic leaders must also have a willingness to clearly communicate the new direction with staff and to deal with any resistance that may occur.”
4. Pinpoint your mistakes
To reap some kind of value from your failure it’s vital you pinpoint where it all went wrong. This will ensure the same problems won’t occur on other projects. If your campaign didn’t gain the traction it needed, find out why. Surveys and targeted audience research will tell you exactly why your marketing didn’t catch anyone’s eyes.
Don’t automatically assume failure is a result of being a little riskier in your marketing. A campaign failure could be down to a number of things, whether that be too little budget, wrong audience, wrong channel or wrong approach. By pinpointing the catalyst to the campaign’s downfall you can navigate riskier marketing campaigns with confidence in the future – knowing what to change or avoid and what works.
5. Take some time for yourself
It can be easy to worry about your reputation and spend too much time placating stakeholders. Take some time for yourself to evaluate how you feel and alleviate the stress you may be facing as a result of the failure. As a leader, responsibility is likely to land at your door and part of being a good leader is manoeuvring through troublesome waters. Never try and hide your mistakes and don’t pin the blame on your team. It’s imperative you set a shining example of what a leader needs to do and lead the analysis and recovery from the forefront. This may take a moment for you to step back and think about your next actions. Although you may feel personal embarrassment, an upfront and honest approach will earn you greater credibility and trust in the long run.
