1. How Smart Professionals Use Failure to Create Well-Being
Dr. Seamus McGardle
Managing Director
Career Development Roundtable
8 December 2016

2. How to Fail? No….....
How to Create Well- Being by Reacting Well to Failure

3. Famous Failures:
After being cut from his High School Basketball Team, He went Home, Locked Himself in his room and Cried

4. Michael Jordan
6 Time NBA Champion 5 Time NBA MVP 4 Time NBA All Star

5. He wasn't able to speak until he was almost 4 years old and his teachers said he would "never amount to much"

6. Albert Einstein
Theoretical Physicist & Nobel Prize Winner

7. She was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she
She was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she... "Wasn't fit for television."

8. Oprah Winfrey Host of a Multi-Award-Winning Talk Show and One of the
Most Influential Women in the World

9. He was fired from a newspaper for "lacking imagination" and "having no original ideas"...

10. Walt Disney
Creator of Mickey Mouse & Winner of 22 Academy Awards

11. At 30 years old he was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he started.

12. Founder of Apple, the Man Who Changed the World
Steve Jobs
Founder of Apple, the Man Who Changed the World

13. They were ejected by Decca recording studios, saying
”We don't like their sound"... They have no future in show business"

14. The Beatles
The Most Commercially Successful and Critically Acclaimed Band in History

15. His first book was rejected by 27 publishers

16. Dr. Seuss
Best Selling Children’s Author in History

17. His fiancé died,
he failed in business,
had a nervous breakdown and
was defeated in 8 elections.

18. Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States and one of the greatest leaders of all time

20. Failure + Resilience + Reflection + Realignment + = WELL-BEING

21. CONSIDER AN UNSATISFACTORY PROFESSIONAL SITUATION THAT YOU COULD REWIND AND REPLAY …....

22. The magic potion for achieving well-being through failure
Resilience
The magic potion for achieving well-being through failure

23. Resilience from the Latin root ‘resili’ meaning to spring back
Being open to learning and growth
Being able to take risks through confidence that those risks can be dealt with
Being able to manage well through a setback

24. Look for signs in yourself showing lack of resilience:
A confident presenter avoiding opportunities
A strong leader procrastinating about decision making
Exhibiting strong negative emotions where positivity is needed
Volatile and inconsistent behavior
Fixation on one solution only, while giving lip service to others
Avoidance of social situations with colleagues

25. Person A
Has higher levels of serotonin, above average resilience and variants of genes linked to a natural ability for emotional intelligence
Natural optimist
Capability to restore equilibrium to their stress levels
Able to access their cognitive powers and use emotional intelligence easily
Able to examine the emotional tone created in the aftermath of a setback
Has the energy to want to move forward despite failure

26. Person B
Has gene variants which result in higher levels of adrenaline, but lower inability to remain functional, greater volatility of emotional and intellectual response and is less flexible
Overwhelmed by stress of the events which may appear seem negative
Creates further negative narrative which does not allow them to see a future
Finds it difficult to imagine they can do anything other than what they have ordinarily done, but may give lip service to change

27. Resilience Creation in Ourselves
We need to understand our own resilience
Cannot work with colleagues well at a level beyond which we will not go ourselves
Must become familiar with our own areas of vulnerability
Need to know what sparks our own anxiety, our own tolerance levels and habitual responses

28. Actions to consider
Can you hold the mirror up to your own thought processes and behaviors? How?
Do you reframe narratives – negative to positives, find silver linings?
Do you listen and hear, or just wait to speak? How will you know?
Are you solutions focused? How do you know?
Do you diffuse stress or create it? How?

29. Reflection

30. Exercise A How would you replay that situation?
Could you have been more resilient? How?
How might resilience have affected the outcome, the sense of achievement, the sense of well-being?

31. Realignment
6 common reasons contributing to sense of failure (remember the narratives)

32. 1. Dither, dither, dither; plan, plan, plan.
Instead: Decide early, if you fail, fail fast, recoup, stay flexible.
Make decisions earlier to create options and build flexibility. Postponing decisions in the attempt to optimize your results can waste your resources in other ways and put you in a corner. Fear of making the wrong decision or of failure, creates higher risk of failure by delaying.

33. 2. Fight the good fight, stand up for yourself.
Instead: Pick the right battles, at the right time, with the right people.
Make prudent decisions based on your present and future situation and capabilities, rather than fighting every battle that comes your way. Learn to walk away from the rest.

34. 3. Over-promise, over-sell, under-deliver.
Instead: Realistically-promise, over-deliver.
When in doubt, do less. When you pace (but pace swiftly), you’re more efficient, more productive, more in control and you reduce your contribution to stress, creating an environment of well-being.

35. 4. Be stubborn in the face of failure.
Instead: Be determined in the face of disbelief.
Flexibility is a virtue, not a weakness; error is inevitable, thus accept being wrong and make more mistakes to learn better and faster. Good ideas need determination, despite setbacks.

36. 5. "I/they know more than anyone else."
Instead: If you think you (or the boss) are the smartest people in the room, you're creating stress, not well- being.
If you’re always right, you've picked the wrong people to work with. Hire and work with people smarter than you. Listen to them. Take the blame for failures, give away the credit for all successes, leave your ego at home.

37. 6. Meet to discuss.
Instead: Meet to decide.
Meetings to disseminate information are the biggest time-waster in almost all organizations. In meetings, structure an agenda that leads to decisions being made on the spot whenever possible. Assign responsibilities in that meeting, not later. Find other means of disseminating information.

38. Consider again, that professional situation, now rewound and replayed…
Consider again, that professional situation, now rewound and replayed….. FAILURE + RESILIENCE + REFLECTION + REALIGNMENT =WELL-BEING

39. Mitigating the Effects of Failure in 4 Steps
1. Break the bad news yourself. If you’ve made a mistake, don’t hope that no one will notice....they will. When someone else points out your failure, that one failure is compounded. By staying quiet, others will attribute this to either cowardice or ignorance. Have the emotional intelligence to speak up. Humans are fallible.
2. Offer an explanation, but don’t make excuses. Owning your mistakes can actually enhance your image. It shows confidence, accountability and integrity. Just be sure to stick to the facts. “We lost the account because I missed the deadline” is a reason. “We lost the account because my dog was sick all weekend and that made me miss the deadline” is an excuse.

40. Mitigating the Effects of Failure…..
3. Have a plan for fixing things. Owning up to a mistake is one thing, but you can’t end it there. It is critical to offer your own solutions. Tell your colleagues the specific steps that you’ve already taken to get things back on track.
4. Have a plan for prevention. In addition to having a plan for fixing things, you should also have a plan for how you’ll avoid making the same mistake in the future. That’s the best way to reassure people that good things will come out of your failure.

41. SRI EXECUTIVE SEARCH WISH YOU A FUTURE OF
SUCCESSFUL FAILURES AND WELL-BEING
THANK YOU!