Episode 125: FAIL YEAH! How to Create a Company Culture that Embraces Failure
Are you a type A, recovering perfectionist trying to make it in the world that sees failure as a loss? If so, today’s episode is full of tangible tips to help you embrace the suck, and fail forward like the #failfluencer you were meant to be. We’ve even got our very own M.O.V.E.O.N. method to help the next time failure strikes. Grab your pen and paper because this is a good one.
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Email Erin: info@learntoimproveit.com
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 125 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Are you a leader or change maker inside of your business organization or corporation? Are you looking for new, innovative ways to drive morale through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers team building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendships, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of the same old, dry, boring leadership books and ice breakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Erin Diehl, business improv, entertainer fail, or, and professional zoombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play improv and experiential learning. And this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development team building effective communication, networking, presentation, skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast.
Erin (01:34):
There you are: a type A, recovering perfectionist, trying to make it in a world that sees failure as a loss. Your way of dealing with hardship is control. You over list. You overthink, you overcommunicate, you micromanage and you obsess. You let yourself get so stressed by perfectionism that you start picking up bad habits, smoking, overeating, over-drinking. You allow yourself to ruin not only yourself, but your team as well. And you run them into the ground with this stress that people can feel radiating from every pour of your body. Every mistake is criticized. Every mishap is meticulously document, or excuse me, let me say that again. No mistakes only gifts, right? Every mishap is meticulously documented in your brain and probably in a very detailed fashion in a very particular file in your computer. You start to get physical pains, stomach cramps, shoulders that feel like they are carrying bricks.
Erin (03:00):
You feel run down, but you keep plowing through each day. Like there's a finish line right in front of you. And once you hit that finish line, everything will be okay. Everything will be okay, but it won't because there's always another finish line. Your team is burned out. No amount of vacation can save them from the rat race of perpetual perfection. That is your brain. They quit. They leave one by one. You see another team member leave for quote unquote “Greener pastures” pretty soon. It's just you in the field of perfectionism, roaming the land like a shepherd with no flock. You isolate yourself. You're sick physically, mentally, you're tired. You have plowed the field of anything that was a potential threat to the perfect field of perfectionism you thought existed when only that field of perfectionism was a dream. It's not a reality. It's a world that doesn't exist.
Erin (04:24):
It's a world that is not rainbows and butterflies, but cloudy skies and NATS. You know, those annoying little pesky NATS that you see when you're around water and they just keep trying to fly in your face because you don't have the, where all to let 'em go. Woo. Improve it! Peeps. I just took y'all to church or a fever dream. I'm not sure which, but does this sound familiar? PS, no psychedelics were used in the making of this podcast. So let me ask you, this. Is this you? Did...when I was telling you this story, were you like, is that, is she talk? Does she read my journal? What is she doing? Why is she talking about me? Is this you perfectionism party of one in the field of dreams? I mean, nightmares. If this is you, please stay tuned. I have so much failure, goodness, to give you today.
Erin (05:18):
And here's a huge spoiler alert for all of you. This was your girl. Okay. Literally this was a direct lift from my life <laugh> and I was, I won't say I was completely alone in the field. But at a certain point in time, I definitely felt like I had just isolated myself and overmanaged and underutilized and over listed all of the things in my life. I personally can relate to perfectionism as if you're a longtime listener. First time you're not really calling, but you're listening in. And if you're new to the show, I like to call myself a recovering perfectionist turned failfluencer for many reasons. And I am the first person to tell you that it is a every day process. This is not something that I have perfected the art of imperfection. I am constantly telling myself to let things go to let go of control.
Erin (06:26):
The early days of improve it. I was in, let's see my early thirties and I had just left my full-time job and was trying this amazing world of improve it out for the very first time. So I literally did everything from the beginning. I did not have any help at all for about 10 months when I started out on my own. And I realized very quickly, I need extra hands. There's only so many hours in the day. So I got an intern and that was great because I was so happy to have help. So I was just like dumping as much work as I can, but I still overmanaged. I still looked over her shoulder and I still overstepped when it came to letting go. And as we brought on more and more people, and the more things that I let go of as a leader and gave over control to the more I realized I really had a control problem.
Erin (07:25):
It was really hard for me to give up certain tasks. It was really hard for me not to see every email that went out to the team for me not to see every email that went out to our clients. And I know in the very beginning stages that that drove my team nuts because it drove me nuts, mid stakes mattered to me. And the only way that I was able to have a hold on my anxiety was to control everything in my life, everything. And it was so hard for me. It was hard for John, my husband. It was hard for the people who were with me and a lot of them, most of them are still with me today. So thanks for hanging in there, everyone, but it really was a very long road to seeing perfectionism and seeing failure as a gift. And let me even say this.
Erin (08:17):
So that's the career version of my own story. The improv version of this story was the very same way. So again, I may type three Enneagram. I am a achiever. I like to see things on a list, get crossed off. Sometimes I'll even add a little thing on that list that I've already done, just so I can cross it off. Cause I'm like, look what I did today. Go girl. So let me tell you this. In the very beginning, when I started studying improv really seriously, I was awful at it because I hated letting go of control. I was used to being class clown. I was voted that in high school, not to brag, but that was, that was who I was. I've always associated myself with laughter levity positivity. But when I stepped into improv a world that I could not control a world that had no script, a world that was filled with mistakes, a world that accept and embrace mistakes and said, Hey, bring those to the table.
Erin (09:16):
Let's make a scene about them. Oh my God, that was exposure therapy at its finest. I had to overcome a lot of self-doubt. I had to let go of being the funniest person in the room. I learned that real quick. When you try to be the very funny person on stage are actually the least funny because true improv is all about listening and reacting to the last thing that was said and making and building a scene from each other's commentary. And it's a beautiful art form. That's why I love it and teach with it. I was really bad at it in the beginning because of this control piece. So I say all of this to tell you my beautiful improve it, pees that if you are a person who deals with failure in a very hard way, if you are somebody who looks at the mistakes that you've made in a day as the most negative thing, the mistakes that you've made in a year, as pitfalls, as downfalls, as things that you cannot recover from, please keep listening.
Erin (10:23):
I have so much Intel for you. I was you. And let me say this. I'm still a recovering perfectionist. I'm still learning. There are moments when I, when something bad happens and then I have to take a step back and look at it from a higher viewpoint. So how do we get ourselves out of this hamster wheel of perpetual perfectionism? How do we stop our brains from wanting to control every single thing in our lives and making the people around us crazy. The big epiphany came for me in 2018 when I became pregnant. And let me just say, trying to control, getting pregnant was my own journey. I could not control it. There was little to no hope until we finally found a way. And even then I surrendered and said, just universe, give me what I'm supposed to have. I'm sick of trying to control the situation.
Erin (11:22):
And if you're a parent listening today, you know what I'm talking about? When you actually have the child, there's nothing you can control. You can make a schedule, but that child's gotta adapt. You can do anything and everything to plan and make the nursery perfect and make every single thing in your life, plant to a tea. But it's going to get derailed because it's not you who's in control. That child is your new boss. And the biggest epiphany for me came in 2020 when the world said, Hey, guess what? That business that you've been building for the past six years is no longer going to be in person. It's going to be completely virtual wall. It's going to be something that you never imagined. And guess what? That 85 page business plan that you created for a year and the 10,000 small business program with Goldman Sachs, that's going away because that was the idea you had for this business.
Erin (12:27):
Here's the idea that the universe has for you. So I had to let go of a lot in 2020, including, oh, I don't know the contracts that we had in place for the rest of the year. I had to let go of the pressure that I put on myself. I had to do all of these things in order to survive. So, alright. Hey Erin, do you wanna put yourself out there and show up on social media, create a podcast. These were limiting beliefs that I had before that I did not wanna do prior to 2020. And in 2020, I said, Nope, time to shine. Let's go do those things. How about creating a membership program? Was this something I ever thought I would do? No, I did it, but Hey, guess what? 2020 said, it's time to do it. How about taking your business that you were supposed to expand all over the us and instead of expanding it regionally, how about making it completely virtual?
Erin (13:31):
Go ahead, girl. Let's go said 2020. Now. How about creating new service offerings and revenue streams that didn't exist before? Don't stop now said 20, 20, we're gonna keep going. There was no time to be perfect. And you know what came out 2020, the things that are serving us today, the silver lining in that time period where I threw everything out the window and said, let's just create, let's not analyze. Let's just go, go, go. So we can actually survive, brought forth the most beautiful things in our life in 2022. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, whenever the timing is know that two years have passed and literally everything felt like a failure in 2020. And now sitting here two years later, I can see why all of those things had to come in place. So I dub myself in 2020 a fail Flur.
Erin (14:36):
This is a very endearing term. You've heard of an influencer. I am a fail. I don't do any of the things that they do, right. I don't do it well. And guess what? I'm very proud to influence failure because it has been a magical teaching tool for myself, for my team, for my business. So in that limiting belief that I had about putting myself out there, creating this show, putting myself online on LinkedIn, and if we're not connected, let's connect immediately or on Instagram at keeping it real deal. Literally I put myself out there and created some of the best relationships and had the best opportunity to gain guests for this show to create a community online. Because I leaned to that voice that said, you can't do that and said, guess what, watch me here I go through that membership program that definitely failed at the end.
Erin (15:36):
It was a, there was a way better way to do this, but we put everything that we possibly could do online. And in a month created a membership program and launched it right in the Hyatt of the pandemic in may of 2020. And we created this group and this community of people who needed each other in that time period who needed support while working from home. And now the people that we created that community with, I still keep in close contact with many of and am so proud to watch their success and their career growth. That opportunity to take our 85 page growth plan and make our temp. Our company completely virtual led me to be able to move to my dream location to Charleston, South Carolina, close to my family, close to the ocean. It allowed our business to scale. And for us to attract people from all over the world to work with us virtually, we're actually working with a company who has a global presence, and we're going to Europe next month, which I'm thrilled about.
Erin (16:40):
And we'll make sure I tell you all about here on the show, but that's because we worked with them virtually. They don't exist in Chicago or in Charlotte, North Carolina, where we were expanding in Atlanta, Georgia, where we were expanding. They were because of our virtual offerings that we are now expanding our presence globally. Those two new things that I told you about were created in 2020 were because we had to laugh breaks. Are these amazing things that were born out of the pandemic when everyone was sitting at home on zoom meetings, we said, okay, we see everyone sitting at home and we see this hilarious group of improv professionals. What can we do that are sitting here at home, not able to perform on stage. People are sitting at home on zoom meeting. After zoom meeting, let's create something that allows them to be able to laugh.
Erin (17:32):
That allows them to be able to have a release and they don't have to go anywhere. Let's have that happen on zoom. So laugh breaks were created. And then through this failure journey, this failfluencer experience, this amazing keynote F words as in Frank at work was born. And let me tell you something about this. This keynote was started off as virtual and now I've done it. Not only in person, but, or sorry, not only virtual, but in person. And it's one of the most amazing things that we are able to do here and improve it because it allows us to see each other as human beings, not robots as human beings. And it allowed me to take all of this information that I'd been gathering about failure and put it in one place. It allowed for us to tell a story that can make somebody feel less alone.
Erin (18:41):
It allowed for me to speak to groups of women, because let me tell you this, the invisible load of being a woman, a woman of color, a mother that is some real ish. So it allows groups of women to come together and feel like they are one, like they are one community that they don't have to be perfect. And through all of these things that we created and this fail flu time period, I made like a thousand and, and eight mistakes. Okay. But what I really gained was the clarity that failure is something that should be celebrated. And I wanna say this, I know today's show is all about creating a company culture that embraces failure. The only way to create a company culture that embraces failure is to actually embrace failure yourself, improve it. Pee's I know you, you are listening to this show.
Erin (19:55):
You are a leader, you are an aspiring leader. You are somebody who wants your people to succeed. You care about the people within your organization, and you care about your own career growth, your own journey. The only way that you are going to create change in your organization is if you believe this yourself. So today I'm starting with you party of one and this field of perfectionism dreams or nightmares. However you wanna look at it. And I want you to come with me on this, fail your journey. Now, one of the biggest lessons that I want to teach you today is an acronym. And this is literally the meat and potatoes of today. So if you take anything away from this show, get outta pen, get outta paper, put off the note section of your phone, write this down. This is how you, as a fail, overcome failures in your own time. What I'm about to say is going to change how you feel the next time that you fail. What I'm about to say is literally going to course correct you. When you wanna go to the lists, when you want to micromanage your team, when you want to control your household, when you want to control every single outcome, because you feel like everything around you is compounding and you're failing and failing and failing. Write this down or retain this in your mind. It is very simple. It is an acronym and this is it.
Erin (21:45):
Move on. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> move on. Let that sink in the next time you fail. Remember these words move on. Now. It seems very simple, right? But it actually has meaning behind each one of these letters. You know, I like an acronym. You know, I like tangibles. This is how you're gonna get through the next thing that feels like the end of the world. The M stands for marinate. So a good rule of thumb, let's say that you are in charge of marketing or you send out a newsletter internally and the newsletter goes out and yeah, freaking forgot to put the most important thing in there. The link. Okay. So you're freaking out. Okay. Now I have to send this to all 800 people at the company. Again, I look like a big dumb, dumb. Here's what I want you to do marinate for the amount of time it took for the failure to take place.
Erin (22:54):
Okay? Marinate for the amount of time that it took for the failure to take place. So if it took you an hour to write this email and send it, you're gonna spend one hour having a pity party party of one, okay, you're gonna take one hour to feel like the world's biggest loser. You are gonna feel like one hour of your time, you are the weakest link. You know what I mean? I'm gonna throw out everything I can right now to let you understand that literally you get the amount of time that it took. If it took you 30 minutes, you only get 30 minutes wallow in the suck, have a pity party and then move to the next thing, which is the O and move it, which stands for own it. Okay. I want you to take responsibility. So let's go back to this example.
Erin (23:42):
You sent the email, you missed the link in the email. It's not the end of the world, but you know who didn't do it. Susan in accounting, Susan in accounting did not make that mistake. You did. So I want you my beautiful improve it, peep to just stand in that imperfection and own it. Okay. Then you're going to move to the V and move on, which is verify next steps. All right. So we made this mistake. What do I need to do next? Well, clearly people are gonna try to click the link where I need them to sign up for the very important thing they're not gonna be able to do. So I need to create another email, write a little funny Diddy about how I messed up, hashtag fail, flu, and send the correct link. Then I need to alert the leadership team that this is happening and make sure that we probably will need next week, another email to go out because people don't like to read double emails in a day and they might be confused.
Erin (24:48):
Verify your next steps and then move to the E of move on, evaluate E evaluate lessons learned. So what did we learn in this experience? Okay, well probably sent the email too fast, cause I have too much on my todo list. So let me scale back my todo list. And so I can have more space, more time to do things correctly. Probably want somebody to look at this email the next time it goes out. So I'll get somebody to proofread my email. And also I need to just take a step back and maybe create an outline of the email and have everything in a file ready to go. Before I create this email, next time, those are my lessons learned. Then you move to the O and move on, which is O H M M. And you can't see me. I'm doing like a meditation hand sitting cross, like just wanted to do that again for you.
Erin (25:57):
I'm sure wherever you are right now. That was a great pause in your day. I know you are going to sit with that failure, the things that you're going to do next, and the lessons that you've learned, and then you're gonna move to the in and move on, which stands for next failure. Because guess what? As soon as you process this one, there's gonna be about 15 more come in your way, improve at peeps. They don't stop. And once you realize this very, very fun fact about failure, it's the most liberating thing. It is literally the most liberating thing. Hashtag fail, flu fail. Yeah. So I want to say this again and make sure you have this in your memory for next time. Move on marinate own it. Verify next steps. Evaluate the lessons learned sit with it and then move on to the next failure. Move on. It's so easy to say it out loud. It's so much harder to do.
Erin (27:13):
This is something that as I was creating this keynote fail, sorry, it's not called fail words. It's called F words. But guess what, HR? I do not swear at all in this keynote, but as I was creating this keynote, I was really, really cognizant of the fact that people want tangibles on how to overcome failure. I need tangibles. This acronym selfishly was built because I needed to realize what I could do the next time that failure came my way. So this keynote F words at work is the secret sauce to redefining failure in the workplace. And you know what? That secret sauce is celebrating our fails. Okay? You can't see me, but right next to me, in my podcast closet, I have a sign that says fail. Yeah. And I have it there for a reason to remind myself every show, every guest I get to speak with every show that I'm a guest on that there are no mistakes, only gifts.
Erin (28:21):
And this is one of the biggest tenets of improv comedy. This is one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome as a young improviser, no mistakes, only gifts. And I have facilitated this keynote now, globally and all over the us. I'm your cap. It real fail flu and Sur bestie, who will teach you that failure is not an option. It is a must. This is an extremely interactive keynote. I'm talking about. People will be on their feet as they practice viewing failures as gifts. And they'll gain an understanding that failing frequently leads to the fundamentals of success. Audience participation is required. I'm gonna entertain teams through storytelling and improv based activities, and I'm encouraging everyone to wear comfortable shoes. I wanna shout out to the slipper squad out there, hashtag slipper squad. As I prepare you to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. If you are somebody listening today wants to innovate, ideate and up level, your professional presence, your company culture, getting comfortable with failure is the only way I teach you all about the fear of failure.
Erin (29:42):
Can't even say that fear of failure and how common it is and that there are tools to change the narrative. I help teams see the way that their failures are seen as gifts. I help you hold yourself accountable to failing frequently. You'll learn all about this idea of a fill flu, because there's so much more than just the hashtag, how to put this move on method into place. I give you such a great overview today, but we dive deeper. And then we talk about how to overcome perfectionism and embrace, failing their way to success. This keynote comes with a fill flu guidebook, Uhhuh with templates. It's very beautiful. Our amazing graphic designer, Kennedy designed this, and it gives templates and journal prompts and very tangible things to take away from the session as well. So if you want to create a company culture that celebrates failure, guess what it starts with you.
Erin (30:54):
It starts with you and this move on method allows you to give yourself the opportunity to, to fail forward, to be okay with the next failure, because that next failure is going to happen and it will happen quickly. So my friends, my improve it peeps here is your takeaway. You know, I like some homework for you. I want you to take this move on method, and I want you to apply it to the very next failure that comes your way. And let me tell you, it's gonna be quicker than you think they happen every day. Move on marinade on it, own it. Verify your next steps, evaluate your lessons. Learned, sit with it in the and then move on to the next failure and improve it. Pees. I need your help. This message is something that I am so passionate about. This message is something that company cultures can take that can integrate.
Erin (32:02):
They can make tangible, tangible, next steps to create a space where failure doesn't feel like the end all be all where failure is actually celebrated. And lemme say this after liberating myself and my team from this notion of perfectionism, we have stood taller in our values. We've grown stronger together. We know who we are on a more fundamental scale and who we want to work with, who we want to attract into the improved internal team and who we want to partner with as clients, it has made us realize that we can really overcome anything. The pandemic was something in 2020 that no one saw coming. And for us, it was a extreme lesson and overcoming failure. And when put to the test, we rose above it. There's no testimony without the test and the testimony I can sit here and tell you today is that by embracing failure, we have become more strong.
Erin (33:18):
We have stood taller in our mission and beliefs and we are ready for anything else that may happen. So if you could improve it, peeps pass this episode, this podcast, this episode in particular to somebody today who you know, who needs it, I would appreciate it so much. I want this message to be spread. And if it's something that an organization needs, if you want me to come and speak at your organization or conference, reach out to us at info, learn to improve it. Dot com. I would love the opportunity to dive deeper in this topic. As you can tell, it's something I'm so passionate about and I love chatting about, and I know it resonates. And if you're listening, you're still listening to this episode. I know it resonates with you. So send this episode to somebody who, you know, needs it or send it to somebody who can allow this message to be spread far and wide.
Erin (34:26):
I am so proud of you improve it peeps for showing up here week after week. I'm so proud of you for failfluencing. I hope you take this move on method and you apply it and you put it into motion today. Let me know how it goes. If you wanna send me a message, you can send me when at info learn to improve it.com or we also have a message in the link, an audio message file called SpeakPipe in your show notes. If you wanna send a message to me and tell me how this has changed your day to day, as you know, I know you're waiting for it. I want you to keep failing, keep improving because the world needs that very special. It that only you can bring, I'll see you next week. Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you were along for the ride.
Erin (35:22):
If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to this show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me at keeping it real deal on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I wanna leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I am rooting for you and the world needs that special. It that only you can bring see you next time.