Failure is Good

Have you failed in the last 6 months? If not, are you sure you are setting yourself up for success?

Failure – a word that many of us would like to avoid in our lives; a word that causes negative feelings and affects our confidence; a word that raises many questions on our abilities and makes us lose trust/confidence amongst our colleagues. Yet, are these the right feelings? Are these the right outcomes of a failure? If they are, how did Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Dhirubhai Ambani, Mahatma Gandhi, Soichiro Honda, Akio Morita and many others become so successful? They had many failures. Infact, when we look at the history of any successful person, we find many failures. Without failure, there is no success. Yet, many of us abhor failure.

Before we go forward, let us look at two case studies:

Case study 1: Here is a man, who in his youth, went to war as a captain but returned as a private (lowest rank in the army); failed in business at the age of 21; defeated in a legislative race at 22; failed in business again at age 24; overcame the death of sweetheart at 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost congressional rage at 34; lost a senator race at age 45; failed in an effort to become vice president at 47; lost a senator race at 49 and was elected president of United States at age 52. His name is Abraham Lincoln and he is now remembered as one of the greatest leaders of America.

Case study 2: Another example of a man who at the age of 65 is termed as failure by everyone. He had in his possession a beat-up car and $100 check from social security. He realized he had to do something. He remembered his mother’s recipe and went out selling. He knocked on many doors but his recipe was rejected. He tried 1,009 times before his recipe was finally accepted and then turned out to be a huge success. His name is Harland David Sanders, also known as Colonel Sanders and we all know about the famous recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

List continues with Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Chaplin, Harrison Ford, J.K. Rowling, Elvis Presley and many others.

When do we fail? Do we fail when we are doing what we know well, time and again? No. We do, only when we move out of our comfort zone and try something new. This in turn means we fail only when we are trying to learn or in other words, if we are not failing, we are not learning.  In such a fast changing world, if we do not continue our learning process, we become outdated very soon. Hence, we can easily summarize that if we are not failing, we are not learning; and if we are not learning, we are not setting ourselves up for success.

Yet, people fear failure. Why? That’s because while we all theoretically agree that failure is good and is a stepping stone for success, as a society, corporate we abhor failure. When was the last time we have seen someone who has taken risk and fail get rewarded or promoted? When was the last time such a person is shown as an ideal/model that others should follow? Instead, we look at it negatively and penalize such people. This behavior disincentives people from taking risks; and thus, opportunities to learn. Infact, outside of Silicon Valley, failure is not appreciated. Hence, is it surprising that a lot of innovation happens in Silicon Valley than other places?

I have two key messages to an individual and his/her manager:

To Individual:

1.       Don’t be scared of failure. It is the best teacher that you can find. Success, while exhilarating would not teach you as many things as failure. As a medical pill could be bitter yet provide better health to the person, failure is a bitter pill that sets us up for success. Failure also teaches up about relationships – who are wearing a façade by the way they treat us and who are the real people who are willing to stand by us and have confidence in us even during failure. The second set of relationships is the one we need to nurture.

2.       Move out of your comfort zone. Look back in your past and reflect on any major success/achievement of yours. Now, go back to the night before the success/achievement. What were you feeling? Most of us would have been feeling anxious, even restless with butterflies in our stomach. This clearly shows that success can be achieved only when we move out of our comfort zone, when we take risks. Hence, go ahead and take risks. Embrace failure and you will set yourself up for success

To Manager: Encourage risk taking. If people fail in the process, incentivize them. Celebrate their failures as this will further encourage risk taking and thus enable innovation in the organization.

The day we celebrate success and failures in equal terms, we will promote learning & innovation across the organization. I am not saying that we should promote a person who has capability issues and fails continuously in their job. However, we should not see such a failure in the same light as a failure resulting from risk taking and expanding the horizons of an individual. In a future blog, I’ll discuss examples of organizations which incentivize both success and failure.

In the words of Michael Jordan, famous basketball player who incidentally was cut from his high school basketball team – “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeeded”. This shows that failure is good. Are you ready to Fail? Happy Failing!!