Best worst mistakes

Had a bad day? This’ll make you feel better. Rationalise it all away with the lesson you learnt. I have just finished flicking through a new book called Forbes’ Best Business Mistakes (published by Wiley). And you’ve got to love the entrepreneurs and CEOs featured in the book. They describe the day from hell and then reverently report that it was the best thing that could have happened to them.

Take the legendary Jack Welch. He was managing a little pilot plant operation for GE in Massachusetts and literally blew the roof off the factory when making a new plastic. Glass was shattered, people were cut… now that’s a bad day in anyone’s books. But not to Jack. The plastic became very successful, which was just one plus. He also learnt a lesson that a number of the other entrepreneurs have learnt: how to manage and lead in a stressful situation. When the inevitable call came from the boss to come to New York for a chat, Jack assumed he was going to get the chop. But instead he sat Jack down and said: “Let’s go through the process.”

It was all about the problem, not beating Jack up. And this gave Jack a big lifelong lesson not to kick someone when they are down.

And he also learnt the importance of accessing higher-level people as the levelheaded bloke that could see past the disaster turned into a guiding force.

So much good from blowing the roof off!

The second story I love also highlights a lesson that again seems very basic: trust your gut.

A well-known financial expert Suze Orman recalls that she was asked by a manager to take on a woman who was struggling. She took her on, even though she did not like her or trust her because she wanted to help out another woman.

Orman decided to leave her firm and strike out on her own and she decided to take the women with her because she didn’t have the guts to tell her. She started the firm on May 2 1987 and on June 22 someone had come into the office in the night and ripped off every file and directed the commissions to her. The thief also called the firm paying the commissions into their account and instructed them to send them to her home address and since her name was on the contracts there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“That’s when I learned that I should never talk myself into trusting anyone. Now if somebody enters my life and I sense they are not good, they are out of there in two seconds.”

The author Bob Sellers makes the point that it is often trusting their gut that got them into trouble in the first place, although as he points out, without the trouble, they would not have been so successful. Hard to know if it is glass half full stuff really. I mean, we all know how bad we feel when things mess up and if we can make ourselves feel better by taking a lesson from our misery, then why not?

But let’s be honest. We would rather have the journey without the stuff ups.

Be sure to check out Leon Gettler’s story today which examines how much “luck” factors into a successful business equation. Read here.