FAIL. Such a nasty four-letter word. We’re all afraid of failure, and even more so, the consequences that failing brings. But I want you to think — really reflect — about the times you’ve failed. Whether that’s in your career, in your relationships, in school, in your goals, or even in those times when you just let yourself down.
Now, I don’t want to get you down in the dumps, so here’s the point: What did you learn from those failures? Did you change or adjust to not allow it to happen again? I bet you did, and I bet you never forgot it.
Coincidentally, there’s a study that proves it. We gain more knowledge and recover better long into the future after failing at something. Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School, finds that failure is a better teacher than success. And surviving an EPIC FAIL usually results in an organization or individual flourishing long after said failure.
I’m sure you can relate and even agree. What about that very first sales call you made — early in your career? Did they hang up? How about that first bright-eyed and bushy-tailed sales pitch? Were there hard-nosed questions you couldn’t answer? And since those days, you’ve evaluated and adapted your sales style, right? If someone slams the door in your face, you betcha — not doin’ it that way again! So why, then, are we all so afraid to fail — and even fail big?
Desai finds that organizations not only learn more from failure than success, they retain that knowledge longer. “We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting, while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” he says. “But there is a tendency in organizations to ignore failure, or try not to focus on it. Managers may fire people or turn over the entire workforce while they should be treating the failure as a learning opportunity.”
“However, Desai doesn’t recommend seeking out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures and near misses to glean useful information rather than wait for major failures. ‘The most significant implication of this study is that organizational leaders should neither ignore failures nor stigmatize those involved with them; rather leaders should treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging the open sharing of information about them.’”
It’s not such a bad thing after all. Just don’t go crazy and use it as an excuse! “Whenever you have a failure, it causes a company to search for solutions; and when you search for solutions, it puts you as an executive in a different mindset, a more open mindset,” Desai says.
So flunk your fear and make that call you’ve been putting off. Go for that huge client you think you can’t land. Take a risk that the voice inside your head normally won’t let you take. You just might learn something. Or, as my boss said, “If you’re not afraid to fail, you might just make a sale.”
[Source: Posted by BJS. "University of Colorado Denver Business School Study Shows Failure Better Teacher than Success." Science Blog. Aug. 23, 2010.]
Friday, Aug 27, 2010
Courtney Huckabay