Lesson #4: Mistakes are a Must on the Road to Success
Lesson #4: Mistakes are a Must on the Road to Success
When Kamprad was a teenager, he became interested in a pro-Nazi group run by a Swedish fascist activist by the name of Per Engdahl. He not only attended group meetings, but he also raised funds and recruited members to the group between 1942 and 1945. It is unknown when Kamprad quit the group, but he remained friends with Engdahl well into the 1950s. This part of Kamprad’s past remained hidden until 1994, when Engdahl’s personal letters were made public after his death.
“This is part of my life I bitterly regret,” says Kamprad. “After a couple of meetings in pure Nazi style, I quit.” In a letter he wrote to employees titled “The Greatest Mistake of My Life,” Kamprad apologized to IKEA employees of Jewish heritage and asked for forgiveness. He also devoted two chapters to the incident in his 1998 book, “The History of IKEA.” Following its publication, Kamprad said in an interview, “Now I have told all I can. Can one ever get forgiveness for such stupidity?”
Kamprad had made a crucial mistake in sympathizing with Nazis in his teenage years. “That was the biggest blunder I’ve made in my entire life, and I regret it deeply,” he says. “I have said sorry, many times, but it has left an indelible mark on my conscience that continually haunts me and perhaps it’s best this way.” Joining the Nazi group would be a mistake that he would be paying for on a personal level for the rest of his life. However, professionally, Kamprad had been left relatively unscathed when the discovery was made. He was criticized and he was attacked in the media, but sales at IKEA continued to increase. Indeed, some speculate that his popularity actually rose following the incident because of the honesty with which he dealt with the aftermath.
Kamprad is also an admitted alcoholic, but he allows himself the luxury of making mistakes, “because I know that, if need be, there are those who correct my mistakes. If you only knew how many of them I’ve made, mistakes.”
Experience has taught Kamprad that not only could the business world be forgiving of his mistakes, but that it was those very mistakes that could end up moving mountains. Indeed, the success of IKEA can be traced back to a simple mistake made by a new employee of IKEA back in 1956. Working in Älmhult, Gillis Lundgren had been standing beside a car with a colleague, trying to figure out how to get a bulky wooden table into the back of it. Finally, against company policy, Lundgren said, “Oh God, then, let’s pull off the legs and put them underneath.” It was with that simple statement that IKEA would reorient itself towards the flat design production for which it has become famous today.
“IKEA is not completely perfect,” says Kamprad. “It irritates me to death to hear it said that IKEA is the best company in the world. We are going the right way to becoming it, for sure, but we are not there yet.”
Lesson 4 Mistakes are a Must on the Road to Success
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“Only those who are asleep make no mistakes,” says Kamprad. “There are few people who have made so many fiascos in my life as I have.”
When Kamprad was a teenager, he became interested in a pro-Nazi group run by a Swedish fascist activist by the name of Per Engdahl. He not only attended group meetings, but he also raised funds and recruited members to the group between 1942 and 1945. It is unknown when Kamprad quit the group, but he remained friends with Engdahl well into the 1950s. This part of Kamprad’s past remained hidden until 1994, when Engdahl’s personal letters were made public after his death.
“This is part of my life I bitterly regret,” says Kamprad. “After a couple of meetings in pure Nazi style, I quit.” In a letter he wrote to employees titled “The Greatest Mistake of My Life,” Kamprad apologized to IKEA employees of Jewish heritage and asked for forgiveness. He also devoted two chapters to the incident in his 1998 book, “The History of IKEA.” Following its publication, Kamprad said in an interview, “Now I have told all I can. Can one ever get forgiveness for such stupidity?”
Kamprad had made a crucial mistake in sympathizing with Nazis in his teenage years. “That was the biggest blunder I’ve made in my entire life, and I regret it deeply,” he says. “I have said sorry, many times, but it has left an indelible mark on my conscience that continually haunts me and perhaps it’s best this way.” Joining the Nazi group would be a mistake that he would be paying for on a personal level for the rest of his life. However, professionally, Kamprad had been left relatively unscathed when the discovery was made. He was criticized and he was attacked in the media, but sales at IKEA continued to increase. Indeed, some speculate that his popularity actually rose following the incident because of the honesty with which he dealt with the aftermath.
Kamprad is also an admitted alcoholic, but he allows himself the luxury of making mistakes, “because I know that, if need be, there are those who correct my mistakes. If you only knew how many of them I’ve made, mistakes.”
Experience has taught Kamprad that not only could the business world be forgiving of his mistakes, but that it was those very mistakes that could end up moving mountains. Indeed, the success of IKEA can be traced back to a simple mistake made by a new employee of IKEA back in 1956. Working in Älmhult, Gillis Lundgren had been standing beside a car with a colleague, trying to figure out how to get a bulky wooden table into the back of it. Finally, against company policy, Lundgren said, “Oh God, then, let’s pull off the legs and put them underneath.” It was with that simple statement that IKEA would reorient itself towards the flat design production for which it has become famous today.
“IKEA is not completely perfect,” says Kamprad. “It irritates me to death to hear it said that IKEA is the best company in the world. We are going the right way to becoming it, for sure, but we are not there yet.”
Lesson 4 Mistakes are a Must on the Road to Success
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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