He wasn’t the only leader who recognized the reality of failure on the journey to success. Late Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy admitted, “When you fail, you have to start all over again from a lesser position.” Before discovering a major breakthrough, inventor Thomas Edison insisted, “I have not failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Alexander Pope imparted, “To err is human.”

Ultimately, the only way to avoid failure is to never attempt anything new – which can prove the greatest failure of all in times of change. Failure should never be the goal, but it should be a tool. After all, not all failures are equal.

Since we’re all sentenced to fail periodically along the way, let’s be proactive about the types of failure we leverage in our pursuit of success.

Fail Fast

You’ve heard about the importance of quick wins before. They produce visible results and generate positive momentum. But what about quick failures? If your new idea or solution is doomed from the start, the quickest way to get to success is to fail fast.

Consider this scenario: Your team comes up with an innovative solution to solve a complex problem in a new way. Because it’s new, it requires significant time to analyze and design. Implementation is a complicated mix of communication, coordination and change management as well. You’re well past the point of no return when you finally come to the realization that the project has been a mistake all along. Now what?

When you fail fast, you can redirect fast. Each iteration (and reiteration) brings success closer and quicker than playing the slow game.

Fail Cheap

Money doesn’t grow on trees, as they say. Not only does it hurt to discover you’ve made a mistake after investing substantial time and effort into a project. If you’ve already sunk a significant amount of funding, you’re left with a real conundrum: stay the course in hopes of recouping a portion of your investment? Or cut ties and incur the wrath of the executive sponsors and finance department

These don’t have to be your only two options. If your project may fail, design it in a way so that you will find out while the level of investment is still low – before you incur significant cost.

Fail on a Small Scale

Perhaps the worst failure scenario is to wait until you make it to the grand stage of a major deployment to discover your solution won’t work. It’s hard to recover credibility after a public blunder delivered at full scale. In their book Decisive, Chip Heath and Dan Heath recommend a way to reality test your assumptions using a method they call “ooch.” To “ooch” is simply to deploy a big idea on a small scale upfront. Use a test market or a pilot group. Create a pilot for a pilot, if you can. Be obnoxious in soliciting feedback each step of the way, especially negative feedback so you can incorporate it into the large scale, fully-tested version.

Failure shouldn’t be celebrated, but it should accepted as a reality of the growth process. The best leaders capitalize on their mistakes – or as Dale Carnegie put it, they profit from their losses. Ultimately, no failure is productive unless we learn from it.

I’ve become convinced that fear is the single factor most capable of derailing a leader’s effectiveness. Responsibilities, pressure, visibility – all of these factors tend of “pile on” over time. Sooner or later we all need to come to grips with the fears inherent with the position.

Fear is a given. Our response to fear determines the outcome. It takes courage to lead.

Below are a sample of common fears leaders face – along with some common reactions and opportunities for response.

Uncertainty

Reaction: Refusing to acknowledge reality

The unknown can be a crippling fear for many leaders. Think about how much we’re unsure of. We only experience life moment by moment, therefore the future is ultimately unknown – no matter how we plan for it. We’ve never had more information (or more access to information), yet it’s almost impossible to be sure we have all of the right information to guarantee an outcome. Change is a part of life and the speed of change has never been faster.

Instead of avoiding change or stalling important decisions, accept it. We don’t have to embrace change – but unless we embrace the reality of change, we’ll stunt our personal and organizational growth.

Responses: Accept the reality that change and uncertainty are part of life; make decisions

Appearing Naive (or Incompetent)

Reaction: Lack of candor; working in silos

No one wants to look dumb. (I know I don’t!) This puts me at odds in the instances I feel dumb – when encountering a new project or comparing myself to other people in a given situation. It’s often the feeling (rather than the fact) that is the real barrier.

No one has all the answers. Each of us have a different level of experience and development. It’s the candid sharing of our opinions and feedback (in appropriate ways) that provide enough input for the team to make informed decisions. Group think is dangerous, but it’s the status quo when team members are afraid to appear naive. Not only that, it’s a massive impediment to the creative process.

Responses: Demonstrate vulnerability; go first; ask for help; acknowledge weaknesses

Criticism

Reaction: Playing it safe, abdicating responsibility

I’ve noticed that the fear of criticism often exceeds the fear of failure. Whether it’s a critical moment in a sports game, boardroom or political office, leaders opt to play it safe instead of doing what creates the greatest chance to be successful. When the plan fails, the blame is easier to handle (or at least deflect).

This simply isn’t leadership.

Response: Take counsel from trusted sources; refuse to entertain the naysayers

Being Wrong

Reaction: Refusing to make decisions

Our reaction to decisions is an interesting phenomenon. We’re often tempted to determine their correctness immediately the fact. The outcome determines whether the decision was “correct” or not. But the result of a decision usually isn’t binary (e.g. simply “right” or “wrong”) – and there are so often additional factors at play, including random chance. That being said, so many times the consequences of our decisions are short-term in nature. It takes courage to make a decision that could result in a bad outcome. But refusing to make decisions (and therefore pushing them up to the next level) creates a bottleneck at the top of the chain of command and limits the effectiveness of the individual leader.

Responses: Have a decision-making process; have the courage to make the decisions that are appropriate at your leadership level

Limited Opportunities

Reaction: Excuses; comparing with others; victim mentality

Each person has a unique background. We have differing levels of intellect, strengths and skills. Some have had every resource at their disposal. Others had to learn the hard way. We all have different ceilings as well.

The problem with focusing on our limitations is that it’s counterproductive. It takes the focus off what we can do and puts it on factors outside our control. Get more information, create an Individual Development Plan and keep working hard.

Responses: Create goals; focus on continuous growth

Failure

Reaction: Refusing to try; excuses; self-sabotage

Ultimately, the fear of failure prevents far too leaders from even leaving the starting gate. Unfortunately, failure is pervasive. Playing it safe won’t inoculate us from the reality of potential failure. As Jim Carrey famously said, “You can fail at something you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance doing something you love.” Leadership may not be “what you love” when the going gets tough, but your love of the people you lead – and responsibility to see the job to its conclusion – should be enough to move you to act.

Responses: Act

Colin Powell famously advised, “Never take counsel from your fears.” He knew firsthand the difficulties of leading when the stakes were high – in a high pressure and visible role. If you are a leader, you will experience fear. How you respond will determine your effectiveness.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

There’s no question that setbacks are a part of business – and a part of life. We can minimize some of them, but we won’t be able to avoid them completely. Once they happen, it’s what comes next that is the crucial part. If you find yourself encountering a setback, here are some next steps.

Talk About It

It’s important to give a voice to disappointment. The bigger the setback, the more important it is to put it into words. The counselors for the Pam Am Flight 73 hijacking advised the survivors to write down their experience as part of their treatment plan. Words have power. Don’t tell everyone about your setbacks; find someone you trust and who is a good listener. Share what happened, your thoughts or feelings about it and thank them for listening. It’s a lot easier to take the next steps when you’ve put your thoughts into words.

Acknowledge the Hard Work & Sacrifices

It’s enough of a challenge to pause and celebrate success. How much more do we overlook the investment that went into a setback? But ironically, most of the disappointment comes from the waste of the investment (especially the emotional investment). Acknowledging the hard work does not mean celebrating failure. It simply validates the worth of the effort that was given.

Count the Wins AND Lessons Learned

Whether you succeed or fail, there are ALWAYS positive and negative takeaways. If you don’t capture these at some level, you’re doomed to repeat the same outcomes. Evaluate what went well as well as areas that could be improved to increase the likelihood of success next time.

Acknowledge the Lack of Control

In any setback, it’s easy to focus on the factors outside our control and just move on. But it’s likely that many are within our control as well. Acknowledging a lack of control helps with managing future expectations, but don’t stop there. Think of ways you can improve the areas where you have control – and ways you can creatively influence the contributing factors where you don’t. There is usually much more we can do than we initially realize.

Take a Breather

Sometimes we need to take a step back before we jump start our next big thing, especially if there was a sense of loss. So take a creative day off. Schedule a down week. Clear your head and gear up for what’s next. But don’t let time get away from you. There’s a difference between taking a timeout and calling it quits. If you take too much time off, you risk getting in a rut.

Redirect & Reengage

When we’re coming off a loss, we usually come back with something to prove. So we throw ourselves twice as hard into the work as a way to make up for the setback. Be careful. You could go down a different path to the same destination. Let the strategy dictate what comes next. If the strategy is uncertain, invest the time to hash it out. They reengage with a sense of purpose.

Get a Quick Win

Finally, once you’ve reengaged following a setback, find something you can celebrate quickly. It doesn’t have to be big. Just get something quantifiable to demonstrate your new progress. Your team needs it and so do you.

At the end of the day, remember that most setbacks aren’t final. They’re only temporary. As NFL coach John Fox is fond of saying, “Sometimes setbacks are setups for better things to come.” Hang in there!

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

What we learned on our trip still influences how I think about leadership. But for now, I’d like to share a few notes about the man who invented the original chicken sandwich.

Who Was Truett Cathy?

Cathy was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1921, which meant he grew up during the Great Depression. One of seven children, Cathy began selling Coca-Colas at age seven to the local community to contribute to the family’s unstable income. Soon he was also selling magazines and had a newspaper route. After serving with the U.S. Army in World War II, Cathy opened the Dwarf House restaurant with his brother Ben in 1946. After Ben was killed in an airplane accident, Cathy continued to operate the restaurant by himself. After many business challenges and experiments with the boneless chicken breast, Cathy developed the perfect recipe for what became the Chick-fil-A sandwich in the early 1960s. Chick-fil-A now operates restaurants in 39 states (and Washington, D.C.) and earned $4.6 billion in sales in 2012. The company is still family owned.

What Can We Learn from Truett Cathy?

It’s Easier to Succeed Than to Fail. The title of Cathy’s first book in 1989, this lesson seems counter-intuitive until you hear it from Cathy’s prospective. Cathy lists several reasons: money spent to fail must be spent again to succeed, doing a job over a second time is an expensive use of time and a person’s credibility and morale decrease with failure but increase with success.

Be Dedicated. Cathy once worked 36 hours straight in his first restaurant – not because he was a workaholic but because the work needed to be done or else the customers wouldn’t be served. There is some value in hard work for it’s own sake, but the difference for Cathy was dedication to his commitments: the cause and the customers.

Each Customer is Precious. If there’s one thing Cathy hated more than anything else, it was losing a customer. He would bend over backwards to accommodate and build good relationships them. He constantly asked for feedback. The problem with poor service, he said, isn’t that the customer will complain. It’s that they won’t complain – and then won’t come back.

You’ve Got to Give Something to Get Something. Cathy subscribed to the old proverb, “he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed,” or as the late Zig Ziglar put it, “You can have anything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” For Cathy, this meant generous promotions that involved free food and free coupons. Early critics reasoned that Cathy would never make it in business because he gave so much away for free. Instead, customers loved Cathy’s food and service so much they were willing to pay for it – and invite their friends.

Wealth is Only Worth It If You Give It Away. When faced with a life-threatening surgical procedure midway through his career, Cathy acknowledged that his brush with death taught him the insignificance of material things. Even though it may seem ironic for a man worth billions of dollars, Cathy related in his latest book Wealth, Is It Worth It? that you can’t take anything with you after you die. Therefore the only way wealth has any lasting value is if you use it to benefit others.

A Good Name is Worth More Than Anything Else. If you take away wealth, awards, and all the outward signs of success, all you’re left with are your choices, reputation and the quality of your character. A good name is worth more than everything else combined. Furthermore, if you associate yourself with other people of high character, you’ll be able to truly build a winning team.

Not only does Truett Cathy use his restaurant to feed hungry people, but also to sponsor high profile community events, like the Chick-fil-A Leadercast seminar on May 10. To find out how to attend with me, click here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

“Yes, this is Bill. I’m a Vice President at First Big Bank. I need to know where our $77 million is.”

“Uh, yes,” I gulped. “Well… do you have an account number?” I was working in the investor reporting department of a major financial institution at my first job out of college. A large commercial property had paid off that week and the payment was split between two separate beneficiaries. As I had entered the $77 million wire into the electronic payment system, I was already preparing my braggadocio about the large amounts of cash I routinely handled in my job (even though this was a special circumstance and was only “electronic” money). But now it looked as though my day was about to be ruined. As I checked the account, my fears were confirmed.

“Um, I think I’m going to have to call you back…” I mustered. Epic. Fail.

What is it about mistakes? We go to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of them and then go to even greater lengths to hide them once they’ve happened. But what if we’re actually missing out on some of the best development there is? Let’s explore some of the benefits of making mistakes and see if we can come up with some alternatives.

Some of the Greatest Discoveries Were Born Out of Mistakes

The number of mistakes that led to eventual breakthroughs for inventors, engineers, researchers, and all kinds of people is nearly limitless. Thomas Edison conducted 9,000 failed experiments before inventing the light bulb. Eager to make an impression as a new publicly traded company, Ford Motor company lost a horrific amount of money on their Edsel automobile in the late 1950s. But from the mistake they were able to produce the Mustang, and later the Taurus. Walt Disney had to start his own business after his first cartoon series went bankrupt. He soon became a household name on his own. Whenever you try something new, there is always a chance of a breakthrough, even if it is not the breakthrough you intended to find.

Mistakes Are Some of the Best Learning Opportunities

Sometimes what we learn from failure actually benefits us more than the failure itself cost. We always ought to be able to learn something. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, said that, “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong… until we can learn to do it right.” As an aside, I like to add that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re missing out on some of the best stuff out there! (Tweet) It’s great when we can learn from the mistakes of others, but when it’s your own snafu, the lesson can last a lifetime. This doesn’t just include a great invention like the Chick-fil-A sandwich. It can include any business, communication, leadership – virtually any kind of lesson.

You Can Never Know It All Before You Start

Sometimes the fear of making a mistake is greater than the actual mistake itself. Some leaders are more apt to be risk-minded than opportunity-minded. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. There are times when waiting for more information can help you avoid devastating losses. The flip side is also true. Sometimes waiting just makes dealing with a problem even more costly. Whatever your partiality toward mistakes, there will be times that require you move past your comfort zone (either toward or away).

So how did I cash in on my $77 million mistake? Well, as it turned out, I did in fact wire the $77 million to the wrong bank and earned myself a couple awkward conversations. But it turned out to not be that big of a deal. I simply emailed a new set of wiring instructions to bank #2 and they solved the problem. And no money was actually in danger since both accounting departments would’ve stayed open until all the accounts balanced. Sure, it was a bit embarrassing, but also a turning point for me in my young career. I discovered that working with numbers didn’t really interest me (doesn’t take a genius to figure that!). Instead I needed to be working with people and creating change. That day marked a turning point in my career pursuits. And the added benefit is that now this whole illustration works much better for me in presentations than if I had never goofed up in the first place!

What’s the biggest, worst, most embarrassing professional mistake you’ve ever made?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

Both Zig Ziglar and I will see you at the top!

Who was Zig Ziglar?

Zig Ziglar was born in Alabama in 1926 as the 10th of 12 children and grew up in tiny Yazoo City, Mississippi. He grew up during the Great Depression and following a stint in the military, began his career in sales. His fledgling performance took a dramatic turn for the better following some inspiring words from one of the company’s senior executives. Soon afterward Ziglar was promoted to the executive level and began giving motivational speeches on the side. Dedicated to helping others get everything they want out of life, Ziglar’s speaking career took off soon after that.  He routinely shared the main stage with former presidents, world leaders, business icons, authors, and celebrities while sharing his philosophy of character, attitude, skills, and faith. Ziglar eventually became a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame and wrote over 30 sales and motivational books, 10 of which became best-sellers, including his first book, See You at the Top.

What We Can Learn from Zig?

Because of the way Zig Ziglar connected with his audiences, perhaps the most impactful takeaways are some of the inspirational quotes he shared. Below are some of my favorites which represent the main flavor of everything Ziglar stood for:

“You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.”

“Failure is an event. It’s not a person. Yesterday really did end last night. Today is a brand new day, and it’s yours.”

“You were born to win, but in order to become the winner you were born to be, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”

“Positive thinking won’t let you do anything. But it will let you do everything… better than negative thinking will.”

“If there’s hope in the future, there’s power in the present.”

“Building a better you is the first step in building a better America.”

And my all-time favorite: “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

My friend Dan Black posted a list of additional Ziglar quotes here.

Ziglar Resources

The great thing about Zig Ziglar’s work is that most of his resources continue to be available to us. Here are the ones I’ve found to be the most helpful:

How to Stay Motivated (19 CD set) – I purchased this CD set in 2008 while on a military deployment in the Middle East. I have since listened to it over and over again. This is the resource I recommend the most highly.

How to Be a Winner (CD) – If you want to start with something shorter than a 20 hour series, get started with this one hour audio presentation.

Better Than Good – This is my favorite Zig Ziglar book.

Success for Dummies – The down and dirty guide describing how motivation works and what success looks like.

Confessions of a Grieving Christian – Although I have not read this book (yet), it’s reported the Ziglar family received more letters of thanks for this book, which Ziglar wrote following the death of his daughter Susan, than all the others combined.

Inspirational Tribute Video – This five minute video was created following Ziglar’s passing and includes a special message Ziglar pre-recorded for you!

Ziglar on Facebook – Receive periodic inspiration from Zig Ziglar in your Facebook news feed.

Ziglar.com – Visit Zig Ziglar’s corporate website if you are looking for professional training solutions, a speaker, or to sign up for the Ziglar newsletter. (I was fortunate enough to be featured in the Ziglar Newsletter last October).

How do you help other people get what they want? In my next post, I’ll share the eight things Zig Ziglar identified that ALL people want, no matter who they are.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

The more time I spend with military and national security leaders, the more I’m convinced of the magnitude of a certain leadership quality: courage. That might not surprise you; everyone knows military service members need courage to put their lives on the line every day. There’s no debating that, but the courage I’m talking about applies to all leaders everywhere, whether your organization is made up of hundreds of thousands of people, or just a handful. Let me explain.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.