Learning From Failure
Just did an intensive 2 hour session showing the developers taking over my team’s projects in the interim after we depart “a quick surface-level walkthrough” of everything we do. It was almost impossible to even cover it all at a high level in just 2 hours, and I hope I didn’t scare them too badly. 😅
#jobDescriptions, #metrics, and #orgCharts never truly tell the tale of everything we do for a business. When your work reaches millions daily and never fails for years on end, it’s easy to be taken for granted.
If there’s anything I wish I did better in my #leadership role at Gap, it’s that I wish I was more emphatic in the advice I gave leaders two steps or more up from me. I was often modest, reserved, or perhaps even timid in the room with people who I’d only met in person maybe once before. I wish I could be as fully blunt as I was with my day-to-day teams, who regularly bore the brunt of my #kindCandor.
There were several big tech decisions made in my time there that I often wonder #whatIf I was able to convince them of a better way. While I may have a talent for it, I generally don’t like to do high-pressure sales stuff. But I’ve been working on that aspect of myself for the last year or so. It seems like it’s sometimes necessary to get the resources I need for my team and to drive a larger org toward smarter tech choices.
Whenever things don’t turn out the way I want, I try not to dwell on the #failure except to find the actions I could’ve taken differently to have the best shot at a better result. I learned from gaming to “play to my outs” and try to learn something from every match, especially the losses.