If at first you don't succeed...

If at first you don’t succeed…

Most of us know the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again”. And it seems like a good idea.
But does it really work?

Well, in a sense but perhaps it needs to be refined slightly. The problem is that if something failed first time around, it is unlikely to have a different outcome second time…unless you do something differently.

For instance, Mark is trying to motivate his team to beat last month’s sales target. Every day he calls his team together and reminds them that if they care about the company they’ll pull out all the stops to reach this goal. At the end of each day he counts the number of confirmed sales but doesn’t see any improvement on last month. So he repeats the message again the next day.
Guess what? At the end of the month the goal has not been achieved.

It is pretty obvious to us outside the situation that Mark is making a huge assumption that his team care about the company and are motivated by that commitment. But evidently they are not.

Of course, it’s always easy to see where someone else is going wrong! So, now let’s have a look at ourselves.

Step 1 – Identify patterns
In which areas of your life do you keep noticing the same set of disappointing outcomes? Perhaps it is in your personal life (You keep dating people who can’t commit!). Perhaps it is in your professional life (You often clash with your superiors). Perhaps it is in your health (You keep dieting but the weight doesn’t come off) or your financial life (You hardly seem to spend anything and yet you never seem to have any money). Identify 3 disappointing patterns in your life.

Step 2 – What’s not working?
In Mark’s story we can see a pattern repeating itself (disappointing sales figures) and we can also see what behaviours he is repeating that may be responsible for that result (trying to motivate through company loyalty).
Consider the 3 disappointing patterns in your life - what behaviours might be creating these results?

NOTE: You may identify a few possibilities. Which one is most likely to be responsible? If you aren’t sure, ask a trusted friend or colleague – as an outsider they might have a clearer picture.

Step 3 – Do something different
This might seem obvious. And I can almost hear you shouting “Yes…but what?”
In a way it doesn’t matter. Mark could ask his team what would motivate them to achieve a better result next month. He could look back at past performance and see what had triggered improved sales effort in the preceding months, he could ask a mentor or friend for some tips. It doesn’t really matter. The key is to do something different.

Step 4 – Monitor the results
As there is some trial and error to this process it is important to monitor whether the new approach has a different, better result. If it does it may be worth continuing although you still may want to refine it as time goes on to ensure it doesn’t become stale.
If it doesn’t have a better result, experiment with something else.

So, if at first you don’t succeed…try and try again (a different way) until you do!