At Stampede, employees and apprentices enjoy our monthly mental health benefits. There’s always room to do better and be proactive with our wellness approach. Early this November, we organised an on-site mental health and resiliency workshop for everyone in Kuala Lumpur, as part of a 6-months long care program conducted by Humankind.my.

In planning this, Stephanie, our UX designer, worked closely with psychologists from HumanKind to tailor the program to our team’s unique background, career journey and challenges. Thank you for your labour of love, Steph!

Developing psychological flexibility

Throughout the two days, we learned to be still and observant towards our feelings when facing stress and to develop awareness of our fight/flight/freeze/fawn response to stressors.

Self-awareness is a recurring theme; developing it is a journey that takes individual willingness and accountability.

To lead others, you need to lead yourself first.”

Another hallmark session was how resiliency as a leader starts by tuning to your core values as you prepare yourself to lead others – something many future leaders in Stampede could relate to.

We also discussed psychological flexibility techniques that help us to work with others who don’t share the same values, a grossly underrated part of any professional relationship.

The sessions were laced with art activities, which is when the enthusiastic children in us emerged. From turning our worries into picturesque drawings to scrapbooking to communicate our values, it’s the most fun we’ve had with scissors, crayons and coloured pencils.

Many thanks to HumanKind for their excellent curation of content and the space they created in the two days for our team to connect at a psychological level.

What started as a workshop felt now like a team-building exercise, with plenty of safe moments to have honest and mind-nourishing conversations. To us, this is how we look out for each other and set a strong foundation for where we want to go next. 🚀

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When we started Stampede, Dov and I were still cringing at our share of bad workplace experience. Our goal then was to create a working environment where people not unlike us can do stuffs they really like while actually enjoying each others’ company. My litmus test when I wake up every morning is almost always – “Do I want to go to work today?”

You cannot underestimate the power of working with people you like. If you are an entrepreneur and have the choice, this should be high on your list. Not profit, not product. People.

Which brings me to my next point. So you found a person who is a perfect fit to your company culture. What next?

The Education of Failure

I think that it is crucial to build a company culture that allows employee to fail and fail fast. Everyone fails. You shouldn’t tiptoe and delay the inevitable. Only by throwing away your reservations and trying things and risking failure, you are able to learn new things. The key point here is moving forward – not to dwell on your failures or repeating the same mistakes. The former is denying yourself of further greatness (and I mean this in every sense of the word) and the latter is just, well, plain lazy. We abhor lazies.

At the speed in which this industry thrives, failing and moving on is a ubiquitous advantage. Never before an outcome of failure can be rectified almost immediately. If it’s beyond repair, be genuine and honest about it. Clients appreciate transparency and only know too well that everyone is fallible to some degree. Get it out of your system, step back and think of another way around it. Nip the negativity in the bud and move the project, and yourself, into positive territory again.

My take – everyone should be permitted to fail. I fail on daily basis, as few dozens half-finished artworks can testify. Dov’s intensity of hacking at his keyboard multiplies when he couldn’t get some code to work. Failure is an acceptable by-product of actually doing something. A good team is built to weather, nay encourage, the education of failures. People will be too scared to try new things if they’re too busy dodging toes.

On the other side of the coin, a company should have a failure-handling mechanism well-oiled and ready. Assure employees that failure is acceptable, help them get their bearing back, send them out there again, then get the hell out of the way.

So fail and fail fast. Then dust yourself off and move on. Rinse and repeat.

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