Embrace Failure

Failure – it stings, bruises our ego and can make us feel like, well, complete failures. But that’s only if we choose to not learn from it. Here are four stories of embracing failure and what you can learn.

Amazon

In 1997, when Jeff Bezos sent his first letter to Amazon shareholders, he said, “We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures.” Nearly every letter to shareholders following has used the words “invent” and “fail,” pointing to the online giant’s embrace of failure and acceptance that it will be a side effect of innovation.

Military Troops

Shmuel Ellis and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University performed a field experiment with two groups of soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces. Both group performed navigation exercises and held after action reviews – a debrief on what worked and what did not. Ellis found the following:

• Soldiers who discussed both successes and failures learned at higher rates than soldiers who discussed just failures.
• Soldiers who discussed both successes and failures appeared to learn faster because they developed “richer mental models” of their experiences than soldiers who only discussed failures.

Cisco

Tech giant Cisco announced its 200th acquisition in the fall of 2017. Within that staggering number of business deals, there has no doubt been failure. However, according to authors Jeff Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, who have researched Cisco’s practices extensively, the company performs after action reviews following each acquisition. Within these reviews Cisco has likely reflected on failures and created a stronger strategy for acquisition each time.

Just a few of the company’s tactics include: acquiring smaller companies that fit well within their culture, treating the decision as the beginning of a process rather than the end, and treating it as an acquisition of people, developing career paths for those within the companies they acquire.

WD-40

You no doubt have a can of this lying around at home – but WD-40 started as dozens of failed formulas. In 1953, a small staff of three at Rocket Chemical Company were looking for the perfect rust-prevention solvents and degreasers for the aerospace industry. After 40 attempts, they finally got the water displacement formula right and named it WD-40 – Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try. Today, it’s an industrial giant and household name.