Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Power of Confronting Your Own Weakness

I recently read a headline from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge that intrigued me: "Learning From My Success and From Others' Failure." It's a very important paper and I will be posting in more detail on it later, but what struck me immediately upon reading the abstract was the finding that learning from others' failure is easier than learning from one's own failures.

Then I read "The Crucible of Leadership" from the great Jerry Colonna as published in Fred Wilson's AVC blog. Among the many gifts of that post was a powerful story, which read in part:

Take as an example a client I worked with intensely over the last few weeks. She and a co-founder have been killing each other (okay, I have a flair for the overstatement…still, they have both been getting sick with a host of ailments—migraines and stomach problems). The arguments had gotten so bad that neither could stand to be in the same room with the other. Even I was exasperated. During one late night call, I asked my client to forget, for a moment, whether her co-founder was right or wrong. “I don’t care who’s right,” I said with my voice rising. “The only thing we have to focus on is what are you supposed to be learning from this.”

There was a long silence. I thought, “Okay. You’ve really pushed her too far. You and your woo-woo ‘lessons in the pain’ crap.” But then: alchemy. She opened up. “This is really shameful to admit,” she began, “but I know I’m a pain in the ass because I have to be right, all the time. I know it’s wrong but I can’t stop myself.”

And with that we had something to work with. I pressed her: Given this tendency, what do you really believe? What values do you hold? What kind of company do you want to build? And what kind of adult do you want to be?

Over the next few weeks, on guard for her need to be right, we carefully went to work changing her approach to the co-founder. For her, the crucible moment came in facing her shame, acknowledging who she really has been and as a result she got to choose how she wanted to manage and who she wanted to be.

We forge our truest identity by facing our fears, our prejudices, our passions, and the source of our aggression.

I would add to that last sentence "our weaknesses." Learning from mistakes doesn't only mean learning from others' mistakes. It means learning about ourselves, our deepest weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Is it harder to confront and take these lessons to heart? Of course. Jerry Colonna's client is a great example of that. But the rewards are manifold. The client is now able to confront this persistent and damaging situation with her partner, and can take this knowledge of herself into all her future interactions.

The lessons from our own failures "leave a deep imprint," but are also lessons that serve us the rest of our lives. Don't settle for only learning from others' mistakes. If you do, you're only halfway to where you need to get.

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