The Plate-Drop Challenge: How to Respond to Failure
The only way to learn how many plates you can spin is to break some plates.
The question of capacity guarantees failure.
T.S. Eliot said, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
The idea is scary, even if Eliot wasn’t thinking about managing projects or tackling stretch goals.
The plate-drop problem:
You just handed another plate to a team member and you notice a perilous wobbler three sticks down.
#1. Don’t spin plates with them.
The only time to do someone’s job for them is during a crisis. But before you jump in, what if your poor management created or fueled the crisis.
If you’re the problem, work on yourself before tampering with others.
#2. Let plates fall and learn from failure.
Questions:
- What happened/didn’t happen that caused this failure?
- How did I (leader) contribute to this failure?
- What will you do differently next time?
#3. Teach them to spin more efficiently.
#4. Don’t automatically extend timelines when plates start wobbling.
Changing a timeline prolongs agony and doesn’t increase capacity. Adjust timelines only when they were unrealistic to begin with.
Questions:
- If you bring your best, how likely is it that you will meet your deadline?
- What do you need to do to get this done on time?
- What do you need to stop doing to meet this deadline?
#5. Give some of their plates to someone else.
You have two options when skillful high-performers start dropping plates.
- Give them help.
- Give some of their plates to someone else.
Broken plates:
The way you respond to broken plates determines your future.
- I’ll never do that again. (You’re stuck)
- What will I do differently next time? (Growth)
Don’t lower standards to save plates. Instead, learn, affirm, and keep spinning.
How might leaders increase productivity without driving people crazy?
What mistakes do leaders make when plates start dropping?
Bonus material:
What’s Your Response to Failure (Maxwell)
How to Respond to Failure when Giving Up is a Bad Idea (Psych Central)
How to React to Failure (Bregman Partners)
Image source: Wikimedia
Eliot also tempers adventure with humility …
seems relevant as well …
“… thus the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we began
and know the place
for the first time.”
Thanks Rurbane. Humility seems to be the universal essential for successful leadership.
Perhaps in this conversation, humility allows you to learn from failure and accept limitations.
I guess the max mean is,
“We won’t know there unless we dare to go there.”
Changing a timeline prolongs agony and doesn’t increase capacity. Adjust timelines only when they were unrealistic to begin with. I have an interesting take on this one that has taken many years to make successful. Under promise over deliver. For timelines (unless truly critical and not everything is critical) give yourself some margin (for unforeseeable events) then deliver early. Once I became a master at that tasks flow better and quality goes up. But you have to have confidence in yourself to make it work.
Thanks Roger. Perhaps one of the problems with creating a good timeline is assuming that everything will go as planned. Build in some margin if you hope to deliver on time, every time.
I’m not sure this approach increases capacity, but it helps with delivery.
Dan – I love the plate analogy. Coming from emergency medicine, we find that there are personalities that do better in that specialty. Being able to juggle many situations at one time is something I enjoy. How do I best deal with this? I think planning for flexibility in capacity and agility is very important. Also, the team and leader must train to be comfortable during these scenarios. In an organization, cross-functional teams expand capacity, allowing the mission to continue during increased demands.
This is an excellent question in our current time and for future planning – capacity and capability during crises must be part of planning. Part of that is understanding where the resources are and being able to employ them appropriately – even in non-traditional ways.
Thanks Kishla. It seems that conversations about productivity and timelines should include, “What if something goes wrong?” I can’t recall every having those conversations.
You probably should avoid piling on imagined problems and create a response to unexpected delay. For example, if you notice that the timeline isn’t going to work out, call a meeting to discuss timelines. In other words, don’t wait till the last minute to deal with delay.
But, don’t allow potential delays to be the reason you play it safe. Just be willing to adapt, if you want too run with tight timelines.
Concerning capacity, I like to tell people:
You give someone 3 tasks, they will complete 3 tasks
You give someone 5 tasks, they will complete 2 tasks
You give someone 10 tasks, they will not complete any of them
When you task people over their capacity they lose the ability to complete anything. Organizations that think they can “save a couple bucks” in the short term by cutting human capital and increasing workload really set themselves up for critical failure in the long term.
Great post today!
Thanks Frank. I feel a couple things at work..
1. Why work hard if more work only earns you higher expectations?
2. Why do your best if it’s not good enough?
3. Stress doesn’t improve performance. (Moderate stress increases performance, but being overwhelmed lowers resolve and capacity.)
Done. ________________________________
In this analogy, acting to follow-up with reasons why the plates were dropped might be misleading sometimes, especially when you can read the fine lines between why he did it and the resultant effect. How leaders responds to it determines how how productive the team reacts on the work force.
Mistakes are lessons of wisdom.
If you want to know how commitment and creative someone is, give the approbation without offense to learn from the numbers.
No one wants to be a an amateur for ever but aim to prove a point of reactive creativities.
If giving a chance to make a difference what would I do differently?