We often don’t appreciate that failure is valuable or that there are two types of failures, some that are valuable learning failures and some that are dangerous.
The value of learning failures. Babies must build strength, balance, and coordination before they can walk. According to Early Learning Nation, babies fall 17 times per hour on average. They don’t perceive falling as a failure. They are positively focused on a destination, and they get up each time they fall and keep going without embarrassment or saying negative things about themselves. It’s a wonderfully effective process of successful learning. One we adults would do well to keep in mind.
During the past three decades, I’ve coached hundreds of entrepreneurs. They’ve all had many failures—some small, some huge! One of my high-tech entrepreneurs summarized his first 12 years of growing his business as “failing their way forward.” It was a combination of lots of learning failures and missing revenue targets, but always making progress. Sounds a lot like a baby learning to walk.
In the book I co-authored with Cathy Greenberg, “Fearless Leaders: Sharpen Your Focus,” we identify 12 “secrets” of individuals who were the best, or one of the best, in the world at what they did. One secret they all identified was “the willingness to fail in order to succeed“. Without that mindset, the other secrets didn’t matter.
As my book also states, “The road to success is filled with the potholes of failure.” Like a baby learning to walk, with you have those learning failures, just keep driving down the road.
Two types of failures. Jeff Bezos’s book, “Invent and Wander” brilliantly identifies two kinds of failures in business (and in life): one-way and two-way. An invaluable differentiation. When making a choice, a potential one-way failure is like walking through a doorway you can’t return through. A potential two-way failure is like walking through a doorway you can return through—a failure you learn from.
Good business organizations encourage taking calculated two-way learning failure risks. Bezos was big on this building Amazon. Entrepreneurs must continually engage in two-way failure risks to differentiate themselves from their competition, create more effective and efficient systems, test which marketing strategy works, etc.
Recently, a COO I work with, after a few weeks of implementing a new system, said, “Well that didn’t work out, and that’s okay! We’ll keep experimenting!” A perfect mindset!
Taking two-way risks. Having the courage to take two-way learning risks is a key to success. Be thoughtful when deciding to take these risks, and assess progress and outcomes regularly. If it isn’t working, go back to the drawing board quickly! Building a business and living our lives is like what our U.S. forefathers (including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) said about democracy: It’s an experiment.
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