THE BEST BUSINESS ADVICE
Anne Wojcicki Co-founder and CEO of 23andMe
I was raised in this family culture where there was the assumption that you’re never done—you can always make something better. I would write a paper and then I’d give it to my mom, and it would come back solid red, and she’d be like, “You can either turn this in and you’ll get a C or a D, or you can rewrite it.” And then you rewrite it. “Well, now it’s better. Now it’s a B.” And you want to rewrite it again.
I really admire how my mom teaches kids. She doesn’t use punishment. It’s, “You turned this in and it was bad. Learn.” I do that with people here. Someone might execute on a project really poorly, and I give them feedback. They’re like, “OK. Let me try it again.” I’m like, “That’s awesome. Totally. Let’s do it again. Let’s try it a different way.”
When we try out new products here, I tell my employees they should assume that some things will resonate with people and some things won’t. And the things that don’t are not failures. They’re just something you learn from. You should be a constant learning machine. Totally embrace when something doesn’t go right. It’s not something to be embarrassed about. Most things in life don’t work, and if you don’t learn from them, how are you ever going to figure out what does work?
It’s really hard to get something completely right. As a business leader, you have to be very comfortable being criticized and recognize it’s not about you. It’s about learning how to be even better. And who wants to be in a static state?
