I’ve failed a lot in my career, and I wont bore you with a laundry list, safe to say the failures weren’t career threatening, just embarrassing.
I did learn though. The painful touch of failure made the lesson all the more memorable.
Taking stock, achieving the meaningful results in large projects the first time around is rare. I’ve certainly found that the best lessons are learned when things don’t happen the way you want them to and you find out what doesn’t work as planned. Tweaking a strategy or two, eliminating distractions, and regrouping after falling short of the desired result are all benefits of failure. Its almost that there’s some small reward for trying something new that didn’t work.
Here are 5 lessons learnt from a career strewn with failure.
1. Explore Strategies That Will Work
When it comes to strategy, the only way to figure out what is really effective is learning what isn’t successful. Of course there are existing methods that have been tried and tested, and you’ve seen them in case studies and in books, on the internet etc, but those often don’t work for everyone and often don’t work in your situation. If you can’t find a way to make it work, create a new way.
Don’t be afraid to explore uncharted territory in terms of finding new ways of doing things- but ensure your new strategy is soundly thought out. Give yourself permission to explore new avenues. When you feel stuck, recalibrate your approach and forge ahead.
2. Know When to Stop
So you’ve initiated a new strategy, or business idea, or just a new approach with your team. You’ve made several attempts to boost their enthusiasm and it doesn’t work. You’ve looked through the feedback from customers and users and its not quite right. The customers are having some troubles that you think are too tough for you to overcome. Certainly there will be struggles in the early stages of any new idea, and don’t mistake the small hurdles you envisioned for material problems or roadblocks that could derail your plan.
A smart businessman knows when its time to stop, to cut your losses, to accept a small defeat, regroup and restart the project. Better to find the right approach and use what resources are left than doggedly plug away in a losing cause not accepting that its a failure.
3. Fine-Tune Your Instincts
If something doesn’t feel right, but you try it anyway and realise it was the wrong move, its a lesson. If you try a certain approach to your marketing strategy that you were hesitant about and it doesn’t work, you’ll know better in the future. Listen to that feeling that made you hesitant in the first place. Maybe your partners, boss, or team member didn’t listen to your warnings and you went along with them, you have learnt a valuable lesson to heed when the feeling comes again. Take time to understand, after the fact, why you didn’t think it would work and ensure your gut feel was correct.
4. Re-Start
If all else fails, press re-start, ctl-alt-del or just turn the damn machine off. Regardless of which business project you’re working on, it’s never too late to stop, drop everything, and rework it. Begin fresh if you have to. Lay a new, stronger foundation and take only what you need from your prior strategies. Explain clearly to all involved why the idea was initially sound, and why things have changed and what you are going to do. It will enable you to retain their confidence. Better this, than to blindly follow a failing idea just because you are afraid of it failing.
5. Evolve with your Plans
Mistakes yield lessons and growth. As you grow, so will your acumen. When your mindset evolves, it becomes inevitable that your skills will develop and these will have a strong positive impact on the brands, products or service you manage. Don’t think in terms of sticking with things as they have been. The world is full of changes, many unforeseen, or unforeseeable. Unless you and the business you manage are flexible and malleable, your business will break the first bump in the road it hits. Embrace that flexibility to changing conditions, and your business will be increasingly successful. This certainly doesn’t mean ditching a potentially game-changing idea just because a couple of people pooh-poohed it. If your idea misses the mark, make the idea evolve with changing circumstances.
Failure is a part of life, and if you don’t learn by failing you are certainly NOT pushing yourself nor your business hard enough.
So whats you best lesson form failure?