Sometimes you win…sometimes you learn

“Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.” I don’t know when (or why) I started saying this, but when I said it to a client earlier this week, it was just the words we all needed to hear.

It had been a tough few days for a project, where even the easy things weren’t going to plan. And to make matters worse, this was supposed to be the slam dunk part of the project; the part where we were “just practicing” for the big challenges.

Although we didn’t win, we sure did learn a lot! We learned that we need to make a larger effort to challenge our assumptions. We learned that we need to build more time investigating up front so we aren’t finding “new” things at the last minute. We learned that we are more creative, nimble and aligned on our goal than we might have previously thought.

Or course we didn’t actually “learn” any of these in the sense that we are all experienced professionals who “knew” all these lessons already. But when a project gives you the gift of the reminder, I believe you should take it.

As a parent, I don’t like it when my children lose a game, but I talk with them in the car on the at home about what they can learn from it. As a teacher, I don’t like it when a student fails, but I proactively connect with them and help them learn from it. As a leader, I don’t like it when the team struggles, but I create intentional opportunities for lessons learned session.

Regardless of the setting, the goal is the same… Learn!