Failing Up

Have you ever heard of anyone who was successful in their work, life or business that did not experience failure at some point in time?  Probably not.  And, if everyone was being honest they would probably tell you that they learned more from their failures than their successes. 

In his book, Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success Tavis Smiley talks about failing up and draws an analogy to what he calls “The Drum Major Instinct.”  Simply put, is your motivation to help or lead others coming from a positive, constructive spirit within you, or are you more interested in leading the parade, like a drum major?  Your motivation and intention are predictors of your success.

As a cancer registrar it is easy to want to be the drum major and lead the parade.  You may want everyone to fall in line behind you and to simply do as they are told.  While many may adopt this approach it is a journey that is headed for disaster and dictated by your ego.  Ego-driven leadership leads to ineffective and negative influence in the workplace.  Intentions driven by ego do not serve a useful purpose in any situation.    

Learning from our failures and then using the lessons learned to “fail up” is what achieving success is built upon.  Cancer Registrars will be successful if they set their ego’s aside, somewhat like laying down the drum major’s baton, and learn from their failures.  Smiley refers to these as “success scars.” 

Here’s the bottom line.  You cannot have success without failure.  You must learn from those failures in order to stretch, grow and to reach a new level of achievement.  And, when you reach the new level, you will likely fail and repeat the cycle again.  Successful Cancer Registrars must go through this cycle in order to achieve their goals and serve the healthcare communities.  Period. 

If you have not taken the time to evaluate your failures and to identify what you learned from those situations then I encourage you to do that as quickly as possible.  To get maximum effect, briefly write down the scenario in which you failed, how and why you think you failed and then craft some constructive and positive statements on what you have learned and how you can use that situation to fail up.  By adopting this mindset to failure and success you will achieve much and be the cancer registrar you are meant to be!

http://www.RegistryMindset.com.  Michele Webb is a nationally recognized, certified cancer registrar (CTR) who is committed to Cancer Registry leadership and professional growth.  She helps cancer registrars around the world as a motivational speaker, author, and educator.  You have permission to repost this article as long as you do not alter it in any way, give credit to the author and link back to her website.