Culture is a funny thing. It drives large groups of people to behave in certain ways, both extrinsic and implicit, and it punishes those who don’t comply. We see this all the time in group psychology as well as anthropology studies, and the nature of culture changes geographically with lots of variations. However, the fundamental principal is the same; a well-practiced rule is followed by the many, whether it makes sense or not. One of those rules tends to be to avoid people who have visibly failed at something. Whether they got bad grades, were let go from a previous employment or, worse, ended up on the wrong side of the law and incarcerated, people who have failed are treated by culture with a Scarlet Letter. They are a proven loss, don’t bother working with them again.
A Funny Thing About Failure
Interestingly, those who have failed and come back for round two tend to perform far better and far more effectively. They know the lay of the land, the cost and what mistakes to avoid. Just ask George Washington — how many battles against the British did he lose before his rag-tag colonial army started figuring out how to fight smart? It took a lot more than one lucky surprise attack in Winter from Valley Forge to win the Revolutionary War. Technically, Washington had been a failure multiple times before he was able to turn the colonial army around.
Too Much Focus on Packaging
Unfortunately, today, we spend far too much time on packaging. Did the person come from the right school with the right grades? Do they have the right references (seriously what does whom a person one has lunch with say about their ability to do a job correctly in any scenario?)? Do they have a clean work record on paper (did anyone check if those resume feathers were real?)? And so on… The truth about a person’s ability to perform, however, doesn’t show until they are actually in the job and doing the work. I’ve dealt with so many prima donnas who have failed simple work tasks like writing memos or setting up spreadsheet models, yet I’ve been amazed by so-called “average” people learning how to produce visualization packages and identify troublesome financial trends buried deep in monotonous mountains of transactions.
No One Changes Even With the Obvious
Is the world going to transform based on this article though or even what I say from experience as a manager of 25 years? Nope. Instead, it’s a matter of action. I ignore recruiters trying to flash to me the latest snappy person portfolio, and I focus instead on those with history and stumbles along the way. I want to know why they stumbled and what they did to recover. That tells me far more about the candidate’s constitution and, more importantly, their capacity to function under pressure going forward.
You can keep your bubble-gum social media faces; I want the grizzled veterans who get the job done consistently even when the only extra reward is a fresh cup of coffee.
This article was originally published by me on Medium on 8/17/24.
