Ever wonder what truly drives innovation in business? It’s not always about flawless execution. In this powerful episode, April Shprintz reveals why transparency about failures – yes, even your “mess-ups” – is the secret ingredient to cultivating a thriving, resilient, and highly innovative team. Learn how embracing your humanity as a leader can transform your company culture, boost your bottom line, and create a workplace where everyone feels empowered to take smart, calculated risks. Get ready to shift your perspective on what it means to lead successfully!
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Transparency About Business F*ckups Leads To Innovation
I’m so glad you’re here. I was doing a workshop with one of my favorite groups of people. It’s an organization in Dallas in the construction industry. They’ve called me back 5 or 6 times to do these mindset workshops, and I love it. I love them as an audience and a group because they get into it. They dig in, and they learn. It is the most awesome experience. What I love is that anytime I do a workshop, there is someone who does not believe anything I’m saying about mindset, or not that they don’t believe it, but they are more on the pessimistic side, or more on the “show me” side.
Some people might call those folks realists. They’re not a natural positive thinker. They want to be objective about things, and I love that person that skeptic in every single group because that person says the things that a lot of us are thinking. When they start sharing the challenges that they’re having, we can work on them together in the group and help lots of people. I had a person like that in this most group and I loved him because he shared some great issues and challenges he was having in his business. We were able to work on those together and solve them.
After we had done so, he was participating even more. I was talking about the fact that, as a leader, an executive, the CEO, or whoever you are in your business, you are the person that everyone looks up to. They all assumed that you don’t mess anything up. They think, “They never fuck up.” That doesn’t happen because of the way that they look at you. What I have found in organizations is that when that person, leader, CEO, executive, all-star, or whoever they are, shares ways that they have messed up in the business, it leads to greater and greater innovation in that business. It is truly remarkable.
Transparency About Failures Drives Innovation
This individual was great because he shared a $30,000 mistake that he made on a custom order. As he was talking about it, he was being very transparent with the entire group of people. It was a decently large group, and I said, “Would you share that with your team, with your employees, or with the folks in your office?” He’s like, “No.” I was like, “You have to go immediately. If not sooner, go tomorrow or the next day, and I want you to share this because, honestly, transparency about business fuck ups leads to innovation.”
When we're afraid to fail, we avoid taking the calculated risks that lead to the most amazing achievements in business. Share on XThat’s probably not going to be quoted everywhere for me saying it, but it is so true. The thing is that when we’re afraid to fail, we won’t take calculated risks that lead us to do the most amazing things in business. If you work for a company or an organization where you’re never allowed to mess up, that thing is going to stay, or it’s going to die. If you encourage your people or your team to take calculated risks, be smart about it. Be intelligent about it.
Tell them that when you did the thing that didn’t work out, ultimately, everything worked out, because you won or you learned. Even if it was a big failure, you learned something good. When your team knows that, or when the people who report to you, who work with you, who work for you know that they can mess up trying to do the right thing, and that’s still okay, you are going to be shocked at the ideas, the progression, and the developments that they are going to create for your business. Ultimately, that is going to benefit your clients in such a way that it is going to benefit your bottom line in ways you couldn’t imagine.
Cultivating A Desirable & Resilient Company Culture
By the way, while you’re doing this, while you’re being transparent about the fact that “I’m human,” you’re also going to create a culture that people love. It will help insulate you from whatever is going on in the economy, help insulate you from pricing pressures and salary pressures because it’s a place that people want to be, all because you were willing to admit sometimes, you fuck up. Here’s to your success.
