When it comes to eloquent proverbs filled with insightful wisdom nobody comes anywhere near the Chinese, not in more than 4000 years.

This is especially true when it comes to learning.

Think about it, is there any question what is meant by “A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood” or any doubt about the truth of it?

Anyone who has ever expended effort in imparting their knowledge to another knows the truth of this saying, “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”

Not just teachers, but every trainer worth their salt will agree with this sentiment, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” It is why they use role-playing, why apprentice programs work and why there is no substitute for OJT (on-the-job training).

In today’s image conscious culture too often people avoid asking questions for fear of being laughed at or worse. I know there have been times I didn’t ask, usually on subjects that fell in the “any idiot knows that” only to find out later that the answer was neither well-known nor obvious. The Chinese call it ‘losing face’, but their ancestors knew the truth. “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”

Last, but definitely not least, is the proverb that has been the basis of my life. It is what I’ve held onto every time my world has turned upside down—more times than I like to remember. “Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.”

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Last Monday and Tuesday I hit a nerve when I described leadership as fertilizer and went on to say that the composted kind was better than that produced in a lab.

So today I went looking for good quotes about fertilizer. I only found two really good ones, especially the one from Rick Pitino

Since there aren’t more, I thought I’d invite you to make up you own. Read the posts (if you haven’t already) and share your fertilizer quotes in comments.

“Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.” –Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching, I’ve learned from making “mistakes.” –Rick Pitino

“Spreading fertilizer on others juices your own growth.” –Miki

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Failure isn’t really failure unless nothing is learned.

Learning from it means that you need to look at it differently.

Few individuals or companies enjoy dwelling on what they consider failures; most pick themselves up and move forward; the strongest dissect what went wrong.

They take the time to decompose the thoughts and actions that didn’t work and document them in a ‘lessons learned’ report.

Good so far.

But what happens to the report? Is it neatly filed with the project information or under another heading?

Investing effort in lessons learned reports only to file them makes it more likely that the errors will be repeated again in the future.

And that is frequently the case.

Instead, if the goal is to learn, then learn to LAUD IT.

Look at what went wrong, not what worked;

Analyze what was done;

Understand why it was done;

Determine how to fix/improve both thoughts and actions.

IT refers to using technology to share the information, making it easily available to everyone and searchable.

Try it. LAUD IT.

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Good grief. It’s already Memorial Day weekend and that means the year is half over, the weather will be kind and the kids will be underfoot out of school.

I have just one item for you today.

Not counting the current economic debacle, have you ever wondered why companies rise and then fail, much like the Roman Empire?

I’ve always wondered how things can go downhill so fast when it takes so much time to turn them around.

Fortunately for me and all like-minded folks, Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, wondered, too.

The result of Collins wondering is found in How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In.

Better than a review, read this excerpt and see if it grabs you as it did me.

On another level, what are you doing this holiday weekend? I plan to spend most of mine digging in the dirt, since our weather is finally cooperating.

Leave me a note and whoever has the most interesting plans will receive a business book. Actually, the winner will be decided at random.org.

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Yesterday I talked about the importance of failing fast, learning and moving on. I received an email from Chris asking what the best way to move past failure was. He said he was penalized for any goal missed or effort that fell short all his growing years and couldn’t seem to get over it as an adult.

Chris is not alone; like Pavlov’s dog we humans also respond to conditioning and as with every living organism people avoid doing things that they’ve been conditioned to believe brings humiliation—or worse.

As I said, Chris’ difficulty isn’t unusual and there are many ways to approach it. I know one coach who routinely recommends therapy, but I’m a bit more pragmatic than that. While therapy may help in the long run, most people want tools they can use to move forward now.

To do that, start with your definition of failure.

It’s believing that so-called failure actually means something that creates the fear of it. But I’m willing to bet that the times you ‘failed’ you weren’t struck by a thunderbolt, the earth didn’t stop turning and the sun still rose in the east.

In other words, what you tried didn’t work, so try something else.

Failing does not equate to death; as long as you get up, falling on your butt shouldn’t be a big deal.

You can even get up slowly; take time to let the ibuprofen work before you form another plan and try again. Falling down isn’t the problem, it’s not getting up that’s the problem.

Of course, knowing this and implementing it are two different things. Chris is going to think over what we discussed and call aback; I told him that if it makes sense to him I’d be happy to coach him through it.

I’ll keep you posted.

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I was looking at some old notes and found something I’d saved from the comments area of a post on changing corporate culture at Dell’s IdeaStorm, “After all, if you don’t challenge yourselves, do you expect to grow? You certainly won’t LEAD.”

I don’t know if it’s original, but it is short, sweet and very true.

If there’s one thing that challenging yourself does it’s to upset the status quo—that’s what forces growth.

That’s true for your company, department, team—and yourself.

Challenges usually involve risk, but risk is healthy.

Risk can be safe if you

• evaluate it;
• perform worst case analysis; and
• go for it.

Risk often, fail fast, learn and move on.

You’ll blow away the competition.

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Six weeks ago I started Seize Your Leadership Day; each post had info and links to resources or articles I felt would interest/be or use to you.

Based on your reaction to date, it’s been of little use to you—a giant yawn.

So I thought I’d ask you directly, do you like the feature?

If so, is the content I find of use to you or does it need refining?

If not, what would you like to see here on Saturdays?

Please don’t be shy. The worst thing for any blogger is to ask for guidance from readers and not get any. Makes us wonder if anyone is reading.

In the meantime, Here are a couple of goodies for today.

Margaret Heffernan’s two most recent posts (1/6 and 13) are the start of a series and offer smart, real-life examples on dealing with the recession. As Heffernan says,

“Think of recessions as tests. Companies that fail them die. Companies that survive live to fight another day. But a few companies emerge stronger than ever.”

They’re short, with solid lessons and ideas for you to start using immediately.

Another useful reminder for recession managing comes in an 18 month old article in Business Week on the value of failure in achieving success. It’s more important in today’s economy than it was then, because without a safe environment in which to fail there can be no innovation and a company without innovation is a company on the slippery, downward slope to mediocrity—or worse.

I hope they’re of use to you.

Don’t forget to leave your thoughts and preferences for Saturday subjects as requested earlier. If you’d rather send them for privacy, you can reach me at miki@RampUpSolutions.com (please put Leadership Turn in the subject line to avoid filters).

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Starting a few years ago, companies that wanted to innovate were finally learning to appreciate failure. They had taken the first steps to understanding that without a culture in which it was safe to fail no one would take the risks that lead to breakthroughs.

Google is held up as the archetype for innovation, but what exactly is it that gives them an edge? Is it really the 20% of time given people to work on their own ideas? Or the food and other perks about which the media loves to write. Or is there something more easily transferable that other companies can do?

Is there one single thing that holds companies back from building successful cultures that juice innovation, spark creativity and empower their employees/customers/investors?

You bet there is: fear!

Fear of being dumped/demoted; fear of being laughed at; fear of what bosses/employees/customers/investors will say when they have the chance; fear of being fired.

In fact, all of these fears can be trace to a basic, still-active, though unstated, policy for too many companies and/or managers—the messenger will be killed.

The idea that the bearer of bad news should not be blamed dates back to Sophocles in 442 B.C. and has been reiterated often in the intervening years—obviously, with only partial success.

Not killing the messenger needs to be instilled deep in the heart of each company’s cultural DNA.

The real question is not whether, but how far, companies will backslide as a result of the current downturn. And, to a great extent, that depends on how much power Wall Street’s short term thinking has lost.

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