The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work

AfterwordBy China GormanCEO, Great Place to Work Institute

Our mission at Great Place to Work is in our name: helping leaders turn their organizations into places where their employees are proud to work. We've studied this issue for more than 25 years, and survey millions of employees in thousands of workplaces around the world every year.

If we had to distill our insights into a single word, that word without doubt would be “trust.” It's the single most important ingredient that characterizes a great place to work—trust between colleagues across the organization, and trust between employees and their leaders.

Yet trust, while easy to talk about, is often elusive. It can be hard to build and easy to lose. That's where failure and how organizations deal with it become so important. In most settings, it's failure that tests the bonds and boundaries of real trust. Do my team members have my back when things go bad? Do my managers accept honest mistakes as a part of doing business without blaming or scapegoating those involved? Can my organization accommodate the risks involved in becoming more innovative?

Trust is as interconnected as innovation is with failure. Both require risk and a willingness to constantly challenge and strengthen the prevailing culture of the organization.

That's why my colleagues and I were happy to connect with John Danner and Mark Coopersmith during their research on this book, and I'm honored to write this afterword. As you've read, these authors have ...