Woops!

Did you know Finland dedicates an entire day to celebrating “failure”? I found out this week, thanks to the ever-informative @Sophie  Every 13 October, Finland marks National Failure Day (Kepä Päivä), encouraging individuals and businesses to share openly stories of setbacks. And I think it’s a cacking idea (although, I could fill more than a day with stories of things that did not go to plan).  Finland understands a simple truth: failure isn’t the end—it’s the foundation of innovation.  

 

 Failure = Learning in Disguise  

From Nokia’s decline in mobile dominance to startups that never took off, Finland’s cultural embrace of failure has fuelled its reputation as a hub for resilience and creativity. Schools even teach students to view mistakes as growth opportunities. As the Finnish proverb goes: “The one who never failed, never achieved anything.”  

 

 The Secret Sauce? A No-Blame Culture  

Businesses thrive when teams feel safe to take risks without fear of ridicule or punishment. Consider Google’s “20% Time”, where employees spend a fifth of their workweek on passion projects. Many “failed” experiments emerged, but so did Gmail and Google Maps. Or Pixar, whose candid post-mortem meetings after films dissect ‘what went wrong’—not ‘who’—to drive future success.  

 

In a similar vein, Tata Group’s “Dare to Try” Award honours failed initiatives that delivered valuable insights. As Chairman Ratan Tata said: “You can walk cautiously, but you won’t reach anywhere.”  

 

 Building a Failure-Friendly Workplace  

1. Normalise vulnerability: Leaders sharing their own failures sets the tone.  

2. Reward risk-taking: Celebrate “intelligent failures” (well-planned efforts that didn’t pan out).  

3. Focus on solutions: Ask “What can we learn?” instead of “Whose fault is this?” 

 

In a world obsessed with perfection, where ideal images and apparently perfect lives are constantly shared on social media, Finland’s approach is a timely reminder: Progress isn’t born from flawless execution—it’s forged through trial, error, and the courage to keep going.  

The Pull

Day 37 (Friday 6th January 2017)

37 - the number of years that the singer, song writer, poet, painter, Jew and novice Zen monk,
Leonard Cohen was with the record label, Colombia. In 1988, when accepting an award, he
thanked Colombia, saying "I have always been touched by the modesty of their interest in my work."
Leonard was initially a poet, but turned to music as he wanted a better income. He died on 7th November
2016.  He was writing up until the end. His last album, You Want it Darker was released
on his 82nd birthday in October 2016.

Congratulations and welcome to the end of the first week in January. Today is often described as the last day of Christmas - traditionally in my family, midnight tonight is the time by which the decorations have to come down, as tomorrow is Epiphany. However, if you take the 12 Days of Christmas as being literal and the 25th as the first Day, then Christmas should have ended yesterday.

Today's post is a treat - a poem on the theme of emotional care and connection, written by Phil Willcox. Phil is passionate about the power and importance of emotions, having completed a MSc in Emotion, Credibility and Deception. He even ran a conference on Emotion at Work in 2016 and has established a movement, which is gaining in popularity and interest, as people begin to appreciate the impact that emotions have on individuals, business results and interactions within the workplace. He is continuing research into emotions  and their impact and has much science-based information that I am sure he would be glad to share with you.

Phil is the founder and Managing Director of e3 Consultancy Training and Coaching Ltd (e3ctc), a consultancy based in Lincoln, UK, which specialises in training and coaching to enable individuals and organisations to learn and develop. Phil is a regular and supportive voice on Twitter (his handle is @PhilWillcox). 

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The Pull

Like a thread right through me, pulling along

Unknown and unseen, yet saying "let’s go"

The places I visit, the people I meet

It is always there, moving my feet

Sometimes pulling back, fighting the move

Scared, unsure and nervous, saying "This? No!"

Doing things that are new, that make me fall

The movement + the blocks, I don't like at all

It still pulls me though, even if it means to crawl

Getting back up, to go again learn more

Looking back at the hollow, I was there, but now

I’m upright again, even if I’m not sure how

On occasion I run, it doesn't feel like a pull

More a fuel, extra juice to keep moving even more

The run and the fuel, helping reach an amazing height,

At times like these, it was worth the fight

I do wonder though, does it pose me a risk?

Caring this much, giving heart and helping all the time

And it does, really does leave me exposed

But I do it again, and I walk down the road

Working with feeling, and loving it so

I can't turn it off, and leave those occasions

Where people need me, or it is the right thing to do,

Come hollow or height, following my heart and seeing it through.

Gains, failures and feelings

Day 33 (Monday 2nd January 2017)

33% increase in hospital admissions for allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock,
compared to 5 years ago, according to data from NHS Digital released in October 2016.
Doctors and scientists believe that the increase is due to our living in cleaner environments
and hence not having to opportunity to build up natural resistances to substances like dust and pollen.

Today's post is a brave and honest poem by Maya Drøschler that reflects on the highs and lows of her past 12 months. As you will appreciate, once you have read her verse, Maya has experienced some significant heights, as well as some hollows, (in what she has described to me as "successes, failures and feelings") during the time that she has set up her own business. She has clearly learned from everything that has happened.

Maya is Danish and lives in Copenhagen (although her clients come from wider afield). Given the style of her post, it should perhaps come as no surprise that Maya's university degree was in Literature with a minor in Philosophy. She has retained her connections with Academia and now occasionally acts as a guest lecturer in HR and People Management. She writes a good and informative blog - in Danish - HR forretning (which translates as HR Business). She has a background in HR (and has worked in Retail, Engineering and Medical Technical Equipment and Analysis).

Maya now runs her own business and specialises in what she calls "The Point of HR" - that intersection between HR and communications. She is very commercial in approach, believing that a business and its leaders need to bear in mind: • a company's particular industry and its place within that sector, including the broader competitive environment • available research and knowledge • global trends in business creation and professional life. She is a huge fan of technology and believes that, used wisely, it will greatly enhance the workplace. Maya uses technology herself, you can find her on Twitter (her handle is @MayaDroeschler).

As well as being a passionate business woman, Maya is also a passionate parent and cares for mothers and children within society. She supports the charity Mødrehjælpen, which helps pregnant women, and families with children, in vulnerable situations with social, professional, legal and financial advice, as well as offering a variety of programs and interventions for young parents and those who have suffered violence, in particular vulnerable women and children.

All of the pictures used in the post have been provided by Maya herself.

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Gains, failures and feelings  

Leaving my job to become an entrepreneur: gains, failures and feelings   

Heights

The sensation of freedom when I quit my job

A leap into daylight, leaving the mob

I had clients; I had money coming in - 

There was no way I could lose; I was smart and thin

Hollows

I spent all my savings; I spent every dime

When clients stopped calling at the most crucial time

With agony growing, I met my deepest fears

My fear of not succeeding, neglected for years

Hearts

A heart is always broken; all perfection has a scar

My daughter moved away from home, my cat crushed by a car

I buried the cat, I promised the girl

She would feel safe & loved in her bright new world

Heights

The feeling of mastery, the concept of thrill

When I got a new, big client and they paid their bill.

I felt like a champion, I felt like a queen

I was developing into a money machine

Hollows

My flaws began appearing and they were real

Suddenly, I was no rock star; I could not close the deal

The world didn’t need me as much as I needed it

I was overwhelmed by doubt, I was ready to submit

Hearts

Apparently, I attracted scumbags and crooks

And this is a sad fact, but not as bad as it looks

Big-hearted people are not always those you suspected

But they are out there somewhere, and you need to collect them

Heights, hollows and hearts

I quit my job to face fear and challenge

I quit my job to give life a new balance 

No one will pay me just to show up

And no one, but me, will decide when to stop

***

Should you follow your dreams and do something completely different with your life?

The New Year is an ideal opportunity to think about your future. I decided to quit my job during the Christmas holidays last year. I’ve never earned this little, I’ve never learned this much.         

Happy New Year!

Reflected Brilliance and Volatility

Day 4 (Friday 4th December 2015)

4 is the smallest number of colours sufficient to shade the countries on a planar map.
In 1852 Francis Guthrie guessed that the answer is 4 for any map, no matter what shape the countries take.
This concept was only claimed to be proved in 1976 by Wolfgang Haken and Kenneth Appel, but their proof is so 
complicated, involving significant computing calculations, so it has been almost impossible to check.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Mark Husband, the Managing Director of specialist Legal headhunters, Cogence Search. You can follow Cogence on Twitter or indeed Mark himself via @MarkHusband. I first met Mark when I was HR Director for an eminent international law firm - he and his team worked with us to achieve some significant lateral hires. Mark is a former litigator and has a genuine passion for the legal sector, as well as his business. Mark's Advent post is candid and, unlike many senior executives working in recruitment, he is prepared to own up to and learn from his mistakes. I am delighted to welcome him as a contributor and hope that he will become a regular blogger.

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Recruitment at every level is a gamble; as in all games of chance the odds are immutable - there is only so much that one can do to mitigate the chance of a loss. People are generally what they seem to be so, as employers and recruiters, we win far more often than we lose.

Cogence Search have been responsible for a host of successful client hires and we have hired lots of great people ourselves, but, in our market, as much as in any other, success has several fathers and failure is an orphan. 

We all love to talk about our successes but our silence in relation to failures serves no one – least of all ourselves, so I would like to talk about a client hire we supported which did not work out and a hire of our own which was a spectacular failure.

Client Hire – Comet Tail

This person’s CV could not have been better – they had led large corporate practices as a partner in some of the largest firms in the world, their client base was well established, they were genial, a team player and an absolute fit for our client. Six rounds of interviews – innumerable internal discussions and an extremely detailed analysis of the person’s business case were conducted over many months. Our client is a very cautious firm and pre-offer invested in an external non-competing agency to undertake an exhaustive referencing process.

The references were all glowing; nobody had a negative thing to say and where client comfort was sought it was given: the hire proceeded.

Their apparent brilliance was an illusion created by the radiance of the firms they had been part of, absent that they were nothing.

This person was a Comet Tail, a dazzling cloud of ice crystals – ultimately nothing but frozen water made temporarily spectacular by the glow of a nearby star.

Comet Lovejoy near the Pleiades star cluster

Their employment lasted 18 months.

Appearances can be deceptive

Our Hire – Coal Dust

Some time ago we were approached through a recruiter to the recruitment sector with a request that we consider a lateral with a fabulous track record – extraordinary personal billings and exceptional sector experience. Like our clients we went through an exhaustive interview process – we looked at past transactions and gained references. We liked the person, believed in them and invested heavily in them and their future.

As we got to know them through their work we found disturbing inconsistencies: they were by no means as capable as their history would suggest; they were commercially naïve when acumen was advertised and had the emotional maturity of a toddler despite their chronological age.

We found our new colleague could spend inordinate amounts of time doing little followed by absurd bouts of sulking, temper tantrums and attention-seeking behaviour of extraordinary proportions.

This person was Coal Dust: an inert mass capable of doing nothing indefinitely, followed by spontaneous combustion or sudden explosion.

Their employment lasted 18 months.

Coal dust explosion

The temptation when these things happen is to cast about for blame – to look at hiring procedures, to apply 20/20 hindsight or search frantically for people to blame. The truth is that it is very unlikely anything could have been done to prevent an errant hire – unfortunately people do not come with warning labels and once in a while we all suffer the consequences: all that glisters is not gold but not all that is rotten comes with wavy “stink lines” warning of its nature.

Knowing when things have gone wrong and acting quickly to fix them is the only way to beat the bookies. Perhaps the fear of blame, in these circumstances, causes us to delay admitting to ourselves that we have made a bad hire.

May the odds be forever in your favour.

My favourite tattoo