Risk failure

No one is perfect.  In their memoirs, good business leaders describe how they have learned from their mistakes and how they have made amends, but they insist that they still had to risk failure, again and again, just to accomplish great things.

These leaders are admired despite their mistakes.  Thomas Edison famously said that for every one successful invention, there were thousands that failed along the way.  Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded, only to be invited back years after, to spearhead a glorious resurrection.

Fear of Failure

“I don’t achieve much because I am scared to fail,” says my student Jane (not her real name).  She was an “average student all my life” in an exclusive girls’ school, and she was “shocked but happy” that she made it to a premier university.

“In grade school, whenever I made a mistake in tests, I would get beaten,” Jane says.  “In high school, I would get grounded.  My mother is extremely demanding.  She compares me to smarter classmates, and she pressures me all the time.  It is so scary when she gets angry, so I became very quiet at home so she would not notice me.  I am actually relieved if she gets on my sister’s case.  In school, I became very quiet also.”

Right now in college, Jane is again an “average” student.  She studies hard, she says, but she is not “naturally bright.”  She is majoring in Business Management; that was not her choice, but her mother’s.  Jane’s secret passion is in the arts, and she had dreamed of going into Fine Arts or Design.

I told her that she could double major.  But Jane has low self-esteem, and she is terrified to fail.  “I cannot add more subjects, because the only way to survive is to not even sleep.  I cannot risk an added major.”

The teen years are the time to take risks, to explore passions, to make mistakes and to pick oneself up again and again.  The psychologist, Erik Erikson, believes that the main task of adolescents is to forge their identity, and this may often involve experimenting, trial-and-error, shifting in and out of courses, taking non-routine subjects, deviating from a set path.

I suggested that Jane take something less risky, like joining an arts organization.   But Jane says she takes only those extracurricular activities that would “look good on a resume just in case.”

Jane is the eldest and she is expected to go into the family business after graduation.

“Just in case our business fails, I would have to look for a well-paying job, so I need a good resume.  Right now, our business is thriving, which I know is a good thing.  I know it puts the food on the table.  But I am still in school and I already hate being in the same room as my mother now.   I don’t know what would happen if I am forced to be with her 24/7 in the business.  I wake up each morning and there seems to be no escape.  I am so depressed that I often think of taking my own life.”

I gently reminded Jane that she has no choice.  She has to talk honestly with her mother, in the hope that the latter would finally understand and empathize.  Of course, this is easier said than done.

No repercussions

What happens if people (and businesses) are strong enough to risk failure?  Rico (not his real name) is the head of a retail family business, founded by his father.  The company has grown from the family store into several branches, and employees have tripled in the last 20 years.

“We thought that we had always treated our employees well,” says Rico, “but we have lost our best salespeople in the last two years.  What’s wrong?”

The only way to find out, I told Rico, is to ask the people themselves.  I warned Rico that the truth might hurt, but he agreed to a company-wide survey, with a rock-solid promise of no repercussions for employees.

After a shaky start, the employees realized that the company meant what it said:  there would be no repercussions.  So they started identifying problems:  lack of tangible incentives, lots of unnecessary overtime, incompetence of family members in key positions.

Rico and his family were initially shocked by the responses.  But they knew things had to change.  Change was not done overnight, but it was steady, and more importantly, employees saw that the owners meant business.

Rico talked to key employees one on one, to get a better inkling of what was happening.  Improvements were made.  Morale increased, and employee turnover diminished.

Next week:  Meet a remarkable family of eye doctors

Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the Board of Directors of Ateneo de Manila University’s Family Business Development Center.  Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (e-mail [email protected].)  E-mail the author at [email protected].