Dead Man Walking… Yes, the term has been used a million times to describe an individual who is “on the way out”.

If you take the term and apply it to companies;  a junkyard rife with organizations would be considered DeadCo’s Walking. The key to avoiding the “junkyard” is to learn from failure.  When you make a mistake with a customer, investor or employee make sure you think about it and learn from it. At Face we coach our clients to set tough goals. At times this results in mistakes along the way.  The key is to learn from them.  The bigger the mistake or failure usually results in an unpleasant memory.

What do you remember most about your last calendar year?  Was it a big customerwin? Was it the top employer reward?  Or was it when a big customer walked away because you didn’t deliver? My bet is you would remember the pain of losing an important customer, a potential advocate and revenue.

Failure is great because we learn so much from the experience. The key is to take those learning’s and apply them moving forward. True leaders learn from their mistakes far more than their successes.

Embrace those hard hits, losses and pivots. Learn and move forward as a smarter, seasoned and insightful leader.