Are we too afraid to make mistakes?
How I applied this Masonic Lesson in the last 2 days at work.
Right across Freemasonry, time and time again, I see and hear of brethren not taking action because they’re too afraid of making a mistake. I then see bottlenecks from strangling the ideal of perfection.
The result?
Trepidation, doubt, uncertainty; but even worse, disengagement and in-action.
Setting the benchmark of perfection as the standard for an outcome stops the most important things from happening: Learning, development, growth, progress. Those all come from taking action, learning from your experience and mistakes, and taking more action and repeating the virtuos circle.
Think of a Baby and how it learns to walk. Does it wait until it can walk perfectly before walking, No. Learns to walk from trying, falling, getting up and trying again.
Our Operative Brethren from time immemorial; we perform ceremonies recounting their learning and development journey. Those ceremonies don’t emphasise enough just how many times an Apprentice or Fellow Craft made mistakes when learning to craft a stone worthy of being placed on the temple. I would bet, plenty.
But do we perhaps live in fear of being criticised or put down by those above and around us?
Well, for starters, that would be un-masonic. Our ceremonies teach us and instruct us to pick up our brethren when they fall, to help them learn & grow when they make a mistake; not to chastise them. Rather, we need to build them up! The brother who takes action, where the result isn’t perfect or produces a pretty rough piece of work, is far more worthy than the brother who doesn’t take action.
I see Freemasonry as a sandbox or development ground for life.
It’s meant to be a place where we can learn, try new things and grow. That’s what it teaches in our ceremonies. Yet, our behaviours throughout the craft discourage that.
Over the last two days, my company held our annual ‘hackathon’.
First, every employee was able to submit an idea for a brand new product that was innovative and used the core theme of the event - Artificial Intelligence.
The business leadership then picked 12 that they wanted to see be turned into a working prototypes.
Then, employees put down their tools for their day to day job, seperate into cross-functional teams with members from all around the business that they don’t know.
Each team is fully committed to building a working prototype of a new software product. We are given a strict 2 day deadline to deliver, then it’s presented to the company before the judging panel of C-Suite Leaders ranging from our company, partners/vendors and customers in a Shark Tank format.
I lead a team that had to bring the idea I pitched to life.
If we focused on building the perfect ashlar version, it wouldn’t have been done. We absolutely would have failed and not delivered anything. Instead, we focused on efforts of taking action, getting it done and working, so we could present it to the judges.
The ultimate prize of the hackathon was that the Judges Winner would be sponsored into production. They would pay to turn this working prototype into an actual product that will go to market. The CPO also commented: that some of the other products will also get sponsored into production, because it wouldn’t make sense for the business to not actually do them.
My Idea and the team I lead had members from Software Engineering, Mobile App Development, Product, Marketing and Content. They were amazing, and worked together with a tough deadline, but because it was stuff they were passionate about, they delivered. The results:
🏆 Winner - Total Points Score
🏆 Winner - Innovative use of Artificial Intelligence
The real prize for us was
Learning & Developing a new set of skills,
Seeing our hard-work and effort materialise,
Building new relationships with team members we wouldn’t otherwise meet
Showcasing our talent and passions
Exposure to our peers,
Showcasing our talent Leadership within the business, partners and industry
However, who actually won here?
Talking to our Chief Product Officer (CPO) of my company he said, we just spent $50 a head to up-skill our entire workforce on all the new AI tools & technologies that are coming to market. Our people were able to step out of their day job, get out of their comfort zone in a supportive environment where it was expected to learn and grow, go into a new-role they don’t normally do, this meant we’ve some amazing talent hiding away in the business.
But more importantly, the company now has several new and innovative products that are on the cutting edge of technology which they can bring to market that when launched would make us leaders in those respective areas. Those new products would ultimate benefit the company from a revenue perspective as well as increasing our number of customers and utilisation of our products and services by our customers.
But, our customers, would actually see tangible and quantifiable value from these new products which would help them solve their problems or achieve their goals which is what they come to our business for.
But how does this relate to Freemasonry?
If we go back to the start of this article, where perfection and fear get in the way of action. Freemasonry is a progressive science that is supposed to be an environment that fosters learning and growth, championing action:
We have “working tools” which are made to be used metaphorically,
We have “degree advancement” as a learning & education plan,
We have “progressive office” which is a leadership & development plan,
We have the metaphor of “building the temple” where the temple represents ourselves as a person, the lodge as an entity, the craft as a fraternity and society as a whole
There are only 3 immovable objects in Freemasonry, there are Ancient Landmarks - these don’t change, but everything else does have change in some way.
But, this verse comes to mind - I will paraphrase:
The Common Gavel teaches us… that the heart may conceive and the head devise in vain if the hand be not prompt to execute the design.