Lessons from business school. And the court (not that one)

Many years ago now, I had the great opportunity to go back to school. It was a little nervewracking, since it had been years since I had been in a formal academic setting. It was also unfamiliar. I was going to a U.S. business school, with clever and experienced business people all around me - CEOs, CFOs and other C-somethings from all over the world, who were often leaders of thousands of people. By comparison, I was just a technician.

But the experience was great! I saw how many people were willing to speak their mind, whether they were ready or not, and not immediately worry about whether they were right. A lot of thinking was wacky - and that was the point - I started to understand why that country has so many moonshot successes, and why their innovation culture is so strong, even amidst the many bad ideas and failures.

This concept of "success amidst failure" brings me to the present day. When I returned to Singapore, I joined the local alumni club of the business school, and started volunteering with their mentoring programme with polytechnic and university students in Singapore. Year after year, I get to meet young people and learn from them! In return, they get to ask questions about work, life and more.

Last week, one of the students asked, "How do you deal with setbacks?"

I thought for a bit.

Sometimes, I come home from work and I tell my wife, that was a great day. You know when you're hitting all the notes. It was a challenging situation, complex and nuanced. But you were well prepared. You understood the situation and the stakeholders. You got all your points across. You were clear and articulate. You anticipated all the roadblocks and questions.

My wife would say, oh great, so you got your way.

And sometimes I would say, oh I didn't. They didn't like it at all.

And my wife would then look at me quizzically and question, then why would it be a good day?!

Earlier in my career, I would have absolutely agreed with her. Success = my boss agrees/likes me. But as I learn and grow, I realise that setbacks are part of the process. If all my ideas succeed, then my ideas have been too few and too small. If I always get my way, then I have not been brave or adventurous enough to ask big. If I'm never wrong, then I am not guessing enough.

One of the things I like to say to interviewees when they ask what it takes to succeed where I work is this. It's like we're putting together a 500 piece jigsaw. But you only have 400 pieces. And you *know* you'll never find the missing 100, no matter how much you dig. So, even of the 400 pieces you do have, sometimes you just have no idea where they fit. But you can put enough of them together to *guess*. Yup, that's probably a giraffe. Or a carousel. Or a sunset.

This is what I say are the 3 "C"s of what it takes to succeed. You try to be Clever - because clever people guess right more often than not. You have to be Courageous - because courage is needed to make a decision when you're not sure. You have to be Connected - because if you see connections, you can put together invisible bridges in the image. Or you can get knowledgeable others to help you to make good guesses!

But sometimes, however many "C"s you fulfil, you're just wrong. Or even if you're right, your boss or peers just see a different picture. This isn't surprising - you're all guessing!

And that's fine.

What matters is the process.

Professor Massimo Massa of INSEAD teaches this thing called "Fair Process Leadership" or "FPL", in the context of board governance. Prof Massa's argument is that boards need to concern themselves with putting together fair process, which he defines as engaging, exploring, explaining, executing and evaluating. These processes are intended to encourage engagement and transparency with stakeholders, and continuous improvement.

Outcome is important of course. But one of the points Prof Massa makes is that boards have to accept that sometimes, the result just doesn't go your way. Real life is just not as clinical as a mathematical equation. There are so many extrinsic factors, so many guesses, so many potentially and subjectively "correct" decisions that the outcome is often out of our control. But what we *can* control is the process. And if we get the process right, then more often than not, we get the right results. But good or bad, we live with the results we get.

Boards that are overly focused on the eventual outcome create an environment that makes management overly conservative, because management then only tries things that they are *sure* will have a successful outcome. And those are few and far between. What we really want is for management to try as many as they can, of the things that good process says we *should*. Good odds are all we can ask for in this chaotic world. If we only have successes, it probably means we are playing too safe, trying too little, reaching too near.

We don't even have to go so far as an INSEAD business professor to realise that this makes sense. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the basketball superstar, was at a press conference just after his team had been eliminated from the playoffs in 2023. The reporter asked if he felt the season had been a failure.

Antetokounmpo somewhat testily but wisely responded to the reporter. You go to work every day. Do you get promoted every year? No? So every one of those years you don't get promoted is a failure? Of course not.

You do work towards a goal. But there are good days, and there are bad days. Some days you're successful, some days you're not. Some days it's your turn, some days it's not your turn. You don't always win. We're gonna come back, try to build good habits, try to play better. It's *steps to success*.

Whether in sports or in the corporate world, there will be bystanders who will throw stones at what is perceived to be failure. Talk is cheap.

So what is success? It's taking the right steps. Even mistakes and setbacks can be part of success. No one can guarantee the right result. What we can do, is do the right thing.

And if we did that, it was a Good Day :)

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt, 1910 at the Sorbonne, Paris

... See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm... James 5:7-8