It's OK To Fail.. But Do It Quickly
It's OK To Fail.. But Do It Quickly
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."
It is ironic how this quote came from arguably the most successful sportsman ever, Michael Jordan. I find it fascinating, in hindsight, of his many accolades and successes that he attributes his success to the fact that he has failed repeatedly. Let's put this into context:
6-time NBA Champion
6-time NBA Finals MVP
5-time NBA Most Valuable Player
10-time NBA Scoring Champion
2-time NBA USA Basketball Athlete of the Year
Yet he bases the foundation of those successes on the fact that he has failed time and time again. It's no coincidence that after retiring from his sporting career he has gone on to be even more successful in his business ventures. According to Business Insider, Michael Jordan's estimated net worth as of April 2020 is a rewarding $2.1 billion.
Is It Really OK To Fail?
Is It Really OK To Fail?
"This is a crucial question because in our success-obsessed society failure is ubiquitous: almost every winner starts out as a loser", says Dashun Wang, Associate Professor of Management and Organization and lead author of the study 'How To Be A Success At Everything'.
Many business development and management studies are continuously being carried out to best determine the formula for success; a formula which undoubtedly includes failure. The truth is that failed attempts are inevitable. These failed attempts constitute a high percentage of that so called formula required to succeed. What is most important is simply a matter of how you react to an unsuccessful attempt.
The secret lies in analyzing your failed attempts: the what, the why and the how. What can I do differently? Why did this attempt not work? How can I apply what I've learnt from failing into future attempts? Our natural human dynamic portrays failure as a reason to give in, condemnation or rejection of ideas and future trials. In truth, too few failed attempts don’t allow for sufficient collection of information, evaluation and testing of products, services, models and strategies.
While there is no hard and fast rule to handling failure, it is imperative to find the balance between knowing when to throw in the towel and when to continue to pursuing a venture. Additionally, we must never underestimate the impact of experience and feedback. Wang states that “if you've done something in the past, you have experience and can start again without having to start from scratch. You will probably have some sense of what worked and what needs to be improved, which is feedback. If you are able to incorporate it wisely, feedback is quite useful."
Dr. Sunnie Giles, creator of Quantum Leadership, encourages us to think of feedback as compound interest on our savings account. This means that feedback (or criticism) can be added to every bit of knowledge that we already have in order to create a new product or adapt an existing product to the market. Inevitably, the process of failing helps to achieve your breakthrough moment of innovation, leadership and business development.
Fail Fast/Quickly?
Fail Fast/Quickly?
How quickly you recover from failure involves your emotional response, or lack thereof, to failing. It is essential to assess areas of improvement honestly and without fear of failing in the future. Understand that with each failed attempt, you are one step closer to success. We know that it takes a level of mental fortitude to keep pursing a goal after many setbacks. However, we take insight and advice from Michael Jordan, and our own blog contributor, that the mental conditioning of overcoming failure quickly leads to high levels of success.
Global companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon and Facebook, have all had periods of failure before finding the optimum product and/or service that meets and exceeds their customers’ needs. We recognize that SMEs do not have the financial resources and manpower to fail on the scale of these legacy brands but we do know that small businesses possess powerful tools which encourage experimentation and rapid failing while entering into new spaces and positions of global leadership in chosen industries. These tools include business structures which allow for more flexibility, progressive managerial skills and business management practices, digitalization of services, innovative development on strict budgets, and the adaptive environment for agile leadership.
In essence, no matter how big or small your businesses, we all have shortcomings, and that’s OK. What really matters is what we learn from these experiences and how we apply them to future projects in a timely manner. Your success is on the other side of failure.