By Holly MacDonald

I have become a Twitter addict. I simply cannot believe how many smart, fabulous perspectives there are out there.

But, this is not a woo-you-to-Twitter post. It’s to share with you a  wonderful blog post that I really connected with.  It’s about failure.  People are so afraid to talk about failure as though it is some kind of icky communicable disease.  We ALL fail. And yet, who admits to it?

This post describes a conference session that talked about failure, openly and honestly.  My favorite take-away was this:

• Little Trust =
• Little Failure =
• Less Learning =
• Less Innovation =
• Less Progress

I wonder if HR has a bit of an inferiority complex at times, and while I know tons of smart HR pros, we still seem to collectively ask questions that paint a picture of a role that doesn’t really believe in itself. We need to be bold, embrace failures, dissect them, share them, learn from them and move on. We’d make more progress as organizations (and as a profession) if we just admit that we aren’t perfect, and that we might not be the smartest person in the room.

I’d love to see this at an HR conference sometime.  My Big, Fat HR failures. I’d go, wouldn’t you?

Holly MacDonald is an independent consultant with well over 15 years of experience in the learning & development field.  Holly is a bit of a techno-geek and can often be found playing online.  When she steps away from her computer, she spends time outside: hiking, kayaking, gardening and of course walking the dog.  She lives on Saltspring Island and is a leader in the live/work revolution.