I was on a call yesterday doing an EQ debrief when I experienced a “flashback” to the good ol’ days. How many of you remember and/or have used Liquid Paper or W(h)ite Out?? I actually learned this morning that when it was originally invented in the early 50s by Bette Nesmith Graham, she referred to it simply as “mistake out” — a product that allowed secretaries to quickly correct typing mistakes. Flash forward to 1978 when it was patented as Liquid Paper and the following year sold to Gillette Corporation for $47.5M! That’s a lot of mistakes 😉
Then the liquid became white tape and was found in offices all over the world. Well, almost every office. According to my friend in the UK, their corporate culture was “Get it right the first time” so they were not allowed to use the product. Is there any wonder why perfectionism and the “pleaser” saboteur exist today?? 🧐. How healthy is that for an organization?
As I’ve learned over the last week, our accomplice saboteurs can help us in the short term, but are not sustainable. In other words, we can win the battle but will lose the war. The same holds true within our organizations. If our employees can’t feel a sense of belonging and psychological safety, they won’t speak up and their silence means that we miss out on a lot of great ideas and innovation.
Let your employees know (as I have my children) that it’s okay to fail, it’s not okay: to quit, give up, never try or never learn from your failure. Humans are fallible, it’s why Liquid Paper was invented in the first place!
Without failure, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. And I’m pretty damn proud of how far I’ve come, how about you?
