Wise failure can guarantee consistent success

Consider this scenario.

Alfred, a young business owner, sat at his office desk one day with the door closed and his head between his hands. He says to himself, “This is one of the biggest shambles of a move I’ve ever made. I should have known better than to bet the shop on that aggressive strategy the last couple of years. It certainly hasn’t paid off, and now we’re operating at a loss, and I am uncertain about what the future holds for Alfred enterprises. Why didn’t I just remain at my old job where I had more security?”

The simple answer here, of course, is that this job that had more security was mind numbing and boring.

As humans, it is in our nature to want a different situation from one we feel is unpleasant, even if we tend to alter the facts a bit (maybe involving a minor variation of being a wealthy beachcomber with a house in the Hamptons).

One way to define failure is simply failing to achieve your expectations or goals. Failure inevitably happens to all of us, but there are much better options than wishful thinking (which does not solve the failure problem) or self-flagellation (which does not correct the failure and could result in depression). Instead, it is helpful to learn from failure and make changes that will bring more consistent success in the future.

We assume people that are wise got that way from being on the planet long enough to learn from a lot of failures. This is very different from the overachiever/perfectionist credo of “never make a mistake”.

Tellingly, if you do not make mistakes and fail, then you are not innovating; and if you are not innovating, then you are not succeeding in the business world either way. You will be consumed by the consistent change that surrounds us all.

Learning from past mistakes and staying in the game can insure that you are consistently successful in the future. In other words, through pain and learning from your failure, you become a wiser person who is immune from the same sort of failure in the future.

However, not all failures build wisdom and lead to future success. Unwise failures are a repeat of past failures because you did not learn anything from them the first time. A general expression that is often true is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result — that seems to fit here because you can literally drive yourself bananas!

It is relatively easy to analyze the lessons in a failure. Examine the three components of a decision

• Objectives (what is the goal?)
• Alternatives (what course of action will we use to achieve the goal?)
• Risk (what level of risk is involved?)

Therefore, when you make a decision that results in a failure to meet your expectations and goals, you can make a better one the next time by changing one or more of the above components. For poor Alfred, he can examine whether his expectations were unrealistic or too risky, or whether the alternative course of action he chose was ineffective. Then he can make adjustments guaranteed to make him wiser and more successful in the future (and live happily ever after . . .).

Take the following advice:

• Try not to make a failure personal. It is just a decision made that did not go how you expected it to, and it has nothing to do with your worth as a human being
• For managers and leaders, ensure to create an organizational culture that rewards and recognizes innovation by accepting failures as an inevitable part of the innovation process
• Document failures and share your lessons with your colleagues. This will prevent reoccurrence
• Glean the success lessons from a failure by examining and adjusting objectives, alternatives, and risks.

If you or someone you know needs advice, PAT Consulting is here to help. We provide robust solutions in the area of mental health and wellbeing to individuals, organizations and institutions. Contact us at info@patnigeria.com or 0907 870 6967.

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