The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

Nothing Hurt But My Ego

2 January, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

It is a truism that you learn by failing.  I recently bought a pair of clip in shoes for my bicycle.  Everybody told me I would fall over once, they were right, it happened when I came to a stop at some traffic lights at the head of a queue of cars (very embarrassing).  At least I wasn’t showing off like the fool in the video.

Apparently the brain reacts to these failures by shutting down the production of dopamine.  This is how it remembers and is also what triggers that sweaty palm sensation you get when you see the pattern that lead to failure re-occurring.

So it is more than a truism, it is a biologically proven fact.

There is another way to avoid failure.  That is to stick with what you know, don’t put yourself in a position where it is likely to happen.

The problem is, if you punish your team for failure they will avoid it.  Then, biologically speaking, they will never learn.

Photo by Kits Unger on Unsplash

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: cycling, dopamine, learning, measurement, trust, video, waste

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Should You Punish Mistakes?

  • Regression to The Mean

  • Best-of-Breed

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in