5. SPII’s Charter of Values – #TryEverything
Error is part of progress, but
every mistake should not happen more than once.
We always felt proud about being a “different” Company. From the very beginning of our story, something about SPII felt special.
We started off as a small industrial design studio in Milan, then moved to Saronno – an apparently unconventional choice.
After some time, the decision was made to sell part of the Company, something very difficult to do for a small family business: first to an equity fund, then to Schaltbau Group.
Then the management passed into the hands of Paola Foiadelli, a turning point that marked a different kind of leadership for SPII and confirmed our forerunner inclusiveness.
We overcame difficult times, and in our darkest hour we decided to set sail for a journey of change and embarked in a complex project such as SPII Evo…
Until today, when we can proudly say we are 100% part of the Schaltbau Group, one more great change for our once small family business.
It was a rough path, sometimes we didn’t see the trail in front of us anymore, sometimes we worried it was an error…and sometimes we indeed made mistakes!
Nevertheless, do you know how comes we are still here? Because…
We are not afraid of mistakes
Error is part of life, of change, and it’s definitely part of progress.
There can’t be one without the other. Many people, and many companies, fear errors, they consider them failures to avoid at all costs…
Well, we don’t. Since the very beginning, we embraced them. We welcomed the opportunity to fail, because we believe FAIL stands for First Attempts In Learning!
We believe that to find out the right solution you often need to try everything, even the wrong ones.
And this is why we decided to place in 5th position in our Charter of Values a motto that we keep repeating like a mantra:
#TryEverything: I wanna try even though I could fail
Have you ever heard this song from Shakira? We know it very well because it became the soundtrack of our change management process, called SPII Evolution.
We wanted to encourage our people to make it happen, to go out of the way to succeed, to think different…and the lyrics of this song was perfect!
So we sang it, we screamed on top of our lungs, “try everything, try eeeeverythiiiing”. So much that we actually convinced ourselves to do it!
Today, we do try everything, everyday. We choose to be brave, to follow different ways, even when it means to dramatically change our direction. We allow SPII to follow its own path, wherever it leads…#WhereverWeCan.
The fine line between mistake and progress
How do you keep trying everything, without risking it all?
You need to welcome errors, but to be merciless with repetition: the enemy is not the mistake, is failing to learn from it!
We need to change our idea of “error”, to see it as a starting point, so that we can openly try all the options even when failure is a possibility.
Doing mistakes doesn’t have to become something good, however it is important to remember that it is part of the game: you should not be afraid of it, or you will never evolve.
When errors happen, pause and reflect:
- what can you learn from it?
- Was it really a complete mistake?
- How can you avoid doing it a second time?
This is the power of errors: they teach you precious lessons, if you let them.
We turned our approach from fighting mistakes to fighting risks. We don’t accept errors, neither encourage them (and we are especially merciless the second time around). Yet, we don’t worry so much about avoiding mistakes, but about mitigating the risk.
Decisions should be ambitious but thoughtful: you should prevent the worst consequences of a mistake, not the mistake itself.
What do you think? Do you agree with us? Let us know and…
See you next time,
Ilaria Cazziol
