If it’s a Monkey, Call it a Monkey
…how failing fast means you fail successfully
We make mistakes and we mess up. You can call it a series of unfortunate events, bad luck, someone else’s fault, downplay the situation, whatever. There are a lot of creative ways to explain away the mess you just created. Sometimes, it just creeps up on you too, putting you in a true state of shock making the situation even worse for you. There are no shortcuts to recovery. Believe me, I have tried.
It was in Hopfgarten, a quaint alpine area in Austria. A friend and I had been skiing all day and were far away from our starting point. Different ski resorts are inter-connected and we had crossed several of them. We hadn’t told anyone of our plans since we didn’t really have any. Now late afternoon, it was time to get back before the ski lifts stopped running for the day. Seeing a group of skiers traversing the slope into the forest, we decided to follow. It looked like they were taking a shortcut back home and knew what they were doing. Before long, we caught up with the group and learnt that they were not locals or really knew what they were doing at all. The terrain got increasingly steeper until we encountered a ravine. We decided to slide down the 60 foot (20 m) wall and cross it. My friend went first. As she was sliding down her knee hit a rock really hard. She was in real pain and could not walk, nevermind ski. We were stuck at the bottom of the ravine with no way to get out. I was angry at the people we had followed. I was angry at the situation and angry that we should have such bad luck. But mostly, I was angry with myself for putting my friend in danger. It really sucked. The sun was setting. It was getting colder. We were slowly realizing that we would need to spend the night here.
Here is a situation where there is no point downplaying things, attempting a cover-up or, pretending things are better than they are (“putting lipstick on a pig” as one would say). If it is a monkey, just call it a monkey. It will help you focus. A problem only becomes bad when it is too late to do anything. This is true for skiing as well as in business. Anyway, back to the ravine.
We were stuck. The other party of five people were in survival mode and near panic. It was everyone for themselves. They quickly began scrambling down the ravine leaving us behind. The decision was quite easy for us. We were not equipped to survive long where we were. Staying put was therefore not an option. So, we too began the arduous journey down the mountain at the bottom of the ravine. Slowly. I would first carry our ski gear for about 50 yards/meters, then walk back and help my friend. Then repeat again. We did this for hours. The sun set. The temperature quickly dropped. The night was clear. Fortunately, the moon provided enough light that we could see where we were stepping. As we progressed down the mountain, the ravine became more shallow. At some point it looked like we could actually get out. We tried and succeeded. When we saw a small house and a road, we knew we were close to civility and on the path to recovery. My friend ended up in a cast for a month thanks to my decision.
Finding yourself in a tough spot is really a leadership opportunity. You can choose the cover up or, you can choose to recover. Fail fast and get to go home.
