Learn from your mistakes, else...

Most organisations suffer from it, although they probably won't acknowledge it -- and many executives probably can't even pronounce it.

The ailment is called atychiphobia or -- this is more of a tongue-twister -- kakorrhaphiophobia. And it is serious enough to affect the long-term prospects of any company, or individual. Put simply, it is the fear of failure.

If you're in the corporate world (and even if you're not), you will probably agree that while success may be its own reward, failure is certainly not its own punishment. You won't get away that lightly. There will be a price to pay, whether as a reduced bonus, an undesirable transfer or even -- worst case scenario -- outright dismissal.

Most organisations only pay lip-service to the notion of learning from mistakes. When the cost of failure is high (and it usually is, especially when dealing with important projects), organisations can be notoriously unforgiving.

Still, that's got to change. "The secret to success is failure. And increasingly, companies are realising this," says Anil Thomas, principal facilitator, Mustard Seed Training and Assessment Systems, a Mumbai-based corporate training house.

The best -- some say only -- way to get over atychiphobia is to create an environment of learning in the organisation. Empower employees to take risks and if a failure occurs -- and it will, so be prepared -- don't treat it like the end of the world. Learn from the mistakes and move on.

Raj Bowen, managing director of Personnel Decisions International, India, a global consulting firm that specialises in talent management and leadership development, agrees with the strategy. "Companies take risks in a booming or a struggling economy.

In India the sheer size of  market opportunities are pushing companies to relinquish traditional command-and-control systems in favour of empowering employees to take risks."

Reebok India took that approach some years ago when it launched a sports salwar-kameez in knit fabric, based on the insight that women wore salwar-kameez or their husbands' T-shirts and track pants for walking. The product bombed -- Indian women wanted clothes the rest of the world was wearing, not customised ethnic wear.

Reebok executives say this is the only product in Reebok India's range that failed, but the company culture clearly doesn't believe in holding grudges: Subhinder Singh Prem was part of the marketing team that came up with the flop idea and is now the managing director of the sports wear company.

It's easy to pull the plug on a strategy that shows signs of failure early on. But that isn't always the case -- sometimes, a failure is apparent only after huge investments of time and money have already been made.

Understandably, it is that much more difficult for a company to adopt a laissez-faire attitude in such circumstances but, nevertheless, it must make that effort, believe HR consultants.

"Senior leaders need to back initiatives strongly and have the patience to persist with new ideas," says K Ramkumar, chief human resources officer, ICICI Bank.

For instance, the financial services major has adopted a potentially-risky strategy -- it is grooming people from non-urban backgrounds and those without MBA degrees to take up managers' positions. It's a long-term project — the results will be apparent only in three to five years -- so the bank has a long wait before it will know whether the gamble paid off.

Even if ICICI Bank's initiative blows up in its face, it can take comfort from HR experts who say that, when it comes to giving second chances, Indians companies are more generous than their international counterparts. But even they draw the line at a third chance. "Making mistakes and failing is fine. But repeating them is not," says Bowen. 

That's where the leadership culture of organisation is required -- to instil confidence in employees.

"Leaders know well that innovation and change all involve experimentation, risk, and failure. They proceed anyway.... Yet not everyone is equally comfortable with risk and uncertainty. Leaders also pay attention to the capacity of their constituents to take control of challenging situations and become fully committed to change. You can't exhort people to take risks if they don't also feel safe," write James M Kouzes and Barry Z Posner in "The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership" (Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader).

Two research executives at IT major Hewlett Packard clearly understand the need for "feeling safe". To increase employees' risk appetite, they came up with the idea of  "decision insurance", which offers employees insurance against unprofitable decisions.

Under this, a group of employees come together and allocate premium in an insurance pool. This ensures that the bonus that an employee stands to lose if he makes mistakes is covered by the insurance.

The safeguards: ensure that it was a genuine risk and not a reckless decision by roping in team members -- and not close friends or professional foes -- in the evaluation process.

If you're insured against bad decisions, it will perhaps help overcome not only kakorrhaphiophobia, but even atelophobia  and decidophobia. Those are the fears of imperfection and of making decisions, just in case you wanted to know.