In a recent America’s Healthcare Leaders interview, Glen Hall, SVP of Sales for MD Buyline, made the following observation:
“Failure is part of learning. I mean as much as we hate to admit it, sometimes we fail. But we learn from it. I think leaders, when they fail, they don’t throw in the towel and get mad and say, ‘I’m never going to do this again.’ They say, ‘Why did I fail? What caused me to fail? What can I learn from this failure so as I move forward I won’t do it again?’ I think that’s the difference between a leader and just the everyday person.”
We have all heard, many times over our careers, the obvious and wise advice, “Learn from Your Failures.” The advice seems so logical. A no brainier! But unfortunately, what sounds obvious, logical, and wise is many times not consistently practiced and applied. So it is with “Learn from Your Failures.”
In this time of extreme information overload, with people continually clamoring for our attention and literally thousands of messages targeted toward each of us every hour, it is very difficult to maintain the quiet, consistent, personal discipline to truly take time to carefully reflect and learn from our failures. Or as I like to say, “learn from our opportunities for improvement.” I consider “failures” to be great opportunities for learning, growth, and improvement.
How about you? Are you strategic, intentional, and consistent in carving out quality quiet time to carefully reflect on and learn from your failures? We all have failures. The most successful leaders are very disciplined to learn and grow from those failures!
To watch free video segments of an interview with Glen Hall, click here.
Copyright © 2016 by Dan Nielsen – www.americashealthcareleaders.com
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