Business Bites: Finding success in failure

Failure can be a springboard to more exciting and challenging endeavours

You may have heard the well-known quote by Jon Sinclair – “Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo”. It fairly neatly sums up an essential mindset when it comes to failure, which is that failure is simply a step to improvement. In fact, it could be argued that failure is more valuable in the learning process than immediate success.

Individuals can find failure hard to accept when they are bombarded by others on social media and TV living ‘perfect’ lives. In reality, those people have just as many day-to-day failures as anyone.

One of the ways to identify learnings and opportunities from failures is to talk to someone else about them. This could be family, friends, a trusted work colleague, or even a mentor. A mentor can objectively see the experience for what it is, thanks to their separation from the event. There is no harm in showing your vulnerability and opening up; you are likely to find that those people will also share similar moments where they once failed and gained from the experience.

Another important consideration must be ‘what is success?’. To have measured an activity against success to deem it a failure, we need to have a benchmark. Did you set the criteria for success yourself? If yes, were you over-ambitious and need to reposition goals and break them down into smaller goals? Did someone else set the criteria for success? If yes, is it the right criteria for you?

Learning new things and gaining new skills are seen as positive things to do and, as mentioned, failure is simply a way in which those things sometimes happen. So surely failure should be taken as a positive and a springboard to move on with more exciting and challenging endeavours.

So is it about mindest? Absolutely. You can choose to let failures erode your confidence and shy away from future risk, or you can use it as a learning curve. Think of the journey that you are on towards your ultimate goal as a series of steps, some successes and some failures but all moving you forward to that goal. There is an ongoing process of refinement through trial and error.

If at first you don’t succeed…

When a baby is beginning to learn to walk, they will have far more falls than they take actual steps. But they keep getting up and trying again. Yes, it’s sometimes frustrating, but the eventual success will make the size of the failures diminish.

Taking an example of a well known and successful entrepreneur, James Dyson, inventor of the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner. It is far too easy to only see where he is today and want his successes. But was he always successful? In terms of his first bagless vacuum clear, it took 5,127 prototypes and 15 years to get it right.

Dyson states: “An inventor’s path is chorused with groans, riddled with fist-banging and punctuated by head scratches. Stumbling upon the next great invention in an “ah-ha!” moment is a myth. It is only by learning from mistakes that progress is made. It’s time to redefine the meaning of the word failure. On the road to invention, failures are just problems that have yet to be solved.”

Did he always get it right? No. His CR01 washing machine (a machine which mimicked the actions of hand washing with two contra-rotating drums) was discontinued because its production cost the company too much. But this hasn’t stopped his ongoing risk taking and served as a lesson well learned.

In reality, success and failure are not absolutes. See them more as shades of grey: every activity that we undertake will involve some measure of both successes and failures. If we review any activity, we can usually find some improvement for next time, which many would not consider as failure even though it may have been a missed opportunity this time.

Failure analysis is the key to learning and finding the knowledge gems before moving on. There are many tools that can be used, one example being the After Action Review (AAR), a process that takes place after the fact. Interestingly, it is argued that the AAR should be used not just following failures and issues but also following successes to see how further improvements can be made.

As a leader or manager in a business, it is important that you allow controlled risk taking and experimentation to allow growth and new ideas to evolve. It is important that you also acknowledge that failures will occur and to create an environment where employees are not afraid to report a failure. And don’t shoot the messenger.

Often the person reporting a failure or error will be held to task over it, even if they simply noticed it and had no involvement in it. Acknowledge the information provided, then look to analyse the reasons for the issue and then plan to resolve the issue. Be open with employees about limitations, about what you don’t know, mistakes you’ve made, and what you can’t get done alone will encourage others to do the same.

In summary

Have the determination to continue what you are doing, and don’t be put off by any setbacks along the way. Tenacity is key. Persistence, perseverance, doggedness, call it what you will, but don’t give up on your goals (maybe realign them) and keep learning from those bumps in the road.
Analyse failures to learn from them so as not to repeat them.

So embrace failures and treat them as a way of gaining experience, knowledge, and skills rather than something negative to shy away from. They can be a way of using past experience to inform ways forward.

Sources

1. James Dyson. Wired Guest Column, 8 April 2011. Accessed 30 June 2022.
2. Frustration and failure fuel Dyson’s success. BBC Future. Accessed 30 June 2022.