I’ve had many career transforming moments, one of them being the concept of “Killing things early” gleaned from a PMO Symposium in Vegas.   At the time I worked in a culture where we never killed anything…ever.  We just rode that shit hard, put it away wet and went out back again without resting.  I tucked it into my Perfect PMO dream box and went about my business.  Not long after, I took my Perfect PMO dream box and opened it up at new employer in a totally new industry. A smaller consulting place functioning well and poised for growth that “needed a PM”.   We spent the next 6 months collaborating on what “we need a PM” meant and I helped them see they didn’t really need a PM.  They needed a more specialized industry resource who  had mad PM skills to best meet their clients’ needs and they could do the company PM work themselves, they just had to actually do it.

Life cycle of failure

• Define failure
• Recognize failure
• Kill
• Free to explore new failure

Traditionally failure is considered bad, feared, often hidden, sometimes denied, but rarely embraced.  Rather than punishing failure or denying failure exists, entrepreneurs embrace failing in the spirit of fail, learn, rise and soar. The realization I was basically “killing” myself by pointing out the position needed to be eliminated because it could not be adapted to fit the business needs made for some uncomfortable Big Girl Panty (BGP) moments.    It took some bravery to unpack the “Kill things early” mantra in spite of the fact it was what needed to be done.  I didn’t want to be perceived as failing at my job.    I had to let go of the fear and reframe failure as the performance of growth it truly is. Once I recognized what would be gained by failing instead of focusing on the failure itself, it provided me with this amazing sense of freedom, possibility and power.  The culture allowed for failure and promoted open collaboration to take fail/fail and make it win/win.  They adapted the role and I get to take the experience and lessons with me in the Perfect PMO dream box.  When we fail, if we use the failure as a chance to adapt, we won’t make that mistake again and we get better.

The freedom gained by the fail is the landing place for adapting to grow stronger, perform better, rise higher.  This applies to everything from riding a bike to running a business. Yes, my example points out there are costs of failing, but even in my example the cost of delaying the kill would have been greater.  I’m not going to pretend it was easy, but I can tell you once it was all said it done it was a moment I look back on with almost giddy fondness.  I finally got to kill something, and it felt soooo good!  Have you ever gotten to kill anything? Do you work in a culture that embraces failure? I’d love to hear about it.

Best, Lola