FAILURE AND THE RISK OF REJECTION

No one likes to fail. It can be very depressing. We all want to do our best to succeed. We assume the path to partnership in a firm or to moving up the corporate ladder is paved with achievement and performance reviews which praise our strengths and direct us to doing better. Research shows that while we all want constructive criticism, lawyers, in particular, are not equipped to handle it.  Leading expert, Dr. Larry Richards, an American lawyer and behavioural psychologist,  has studied thousands of lawyers and has concluded that they are about 4 to 5 times more sensitive to criticism than the average population. They hate failure. They can’t deal with rejection. Those of you who are not lawyers may fare better, but let’s face it: we would all prefer to avoid criticism if at all possible.

I achieved great success over the course of my career as a tax expert, film finance lawyer and managing partner, so you might conclude that I was one of those that rarely failed. You’d be wrong. You might also guess that a law student destined to become managing partner would go to interviews and wow every law firm with his sparkling personality and wit.  Not my case at all. I could barely get a job after graduating from McGill. Faskens, Stikemans, DWPV, and a half dozen other firms, including Heenan Blaikie, (the firm I went on to lead later in my career) rejected me. I didn’t project very well in those interviews. I was no better than an average public speaker and judging by the results, every firm thought there were better candidates out there.  

As a second year lawyer I made all kinds of mistakes. Thankfully the law firm showed patience in the hopes I would develop. Years later countless versions of my tax plans were blown up by the federal government who changed the rules continually in an effort to make my film finance schemes unattractive. Even as a managing partner I made errors in judgment. I apologized to my partners and staff more times than I can remember. I would estimate that at on average one out of every four decisions I made was wrong. When you make a mistake at the top, believe me, everyone notices.

So why am I sharing this with you? I don’t see an admission of failure as a sign of weakness. Quite the contrary: here’s what I learned from personal experience. Every failure along the road of my career forced me to learn something about myself. I’m proud to say I’ve learned more from the failures than from the successes. I went back to the drawing board more times than I can remember, licked my wounds and kept moving forward, each time a little wiser than before the failure.

On your career path, you will continually face opportunities to take on new responsibilities for which you are not prepared. You’ll have to face the possibility that you may fail. I know many people who shy away from those situations, who are more comfortable taking on tasks where they know they will succeed. Understand, though, that if you follow that path you’re holding yourself back. To flourish as a professional, you need to expand your skill base. That means taking risks, pushing your boundaries, taking stands on issues where there is no certainty, and making a decision without complete information when a decision has to be taken.

Will you be brave enough to push through the fear and to overcome the risk of rejection if you fail? If you want to excel in your profession, it’s an imperative.

It doesn’t matter what level of success you’ve achieved, you must keep pushing yourself to have a fulfilling work life.

Check out www.normanbacal.com