The Art of Failing

Source: abelleee/Pixabay

Much inspirational advice for success emphasizes the importance of failing.

The main intent is to provide decision-makers with motivation to act: If they wish to improve and eventually succeed, they’ll have to

• make mistakes
• taste failure,
• build on that knowledge.

A popular statistic emphasized is that past failure is a common feature of most success stories. If a lot of people who made it endured defeat, then failing must be necessary for success.

Sounds true... but there are several problems.

1. Silent Failures

Past failure may not only be common to many stories that end in success but equally (if not more) common to many stories that ultimately end in failure.

When learning from success, it’s easy to ignore those who didn’t succeed. That’s why benchmarking achievements is a flawed strategy to understand their true causes. As a result, one ends up investing in costly ideas and strategies that might not make the desired difference.

Hence, “fail to succeed” may not be as viable as it sounds.

2. Defining Failures

In certain settings, like sports, failure, loss, and defeat may be relatively well-defined and accepted by the majority.

In business and life, on the other hand, these definitions depend to a much larger extent on the values and aims of decision-makers.

Consider a manager leaving a position that would eventually lead her/him to become the CEO and much wealthier. Is this a failure? What if the “success” would have led to health problems, less time with loved ones, or an inability to focus on a passion project?

The assumption that there’s a clear and universal definition of failure undermines much advice for success.

3. Designing Failures

One of us (Emre) used to practice Aikido. One of the first things he had to learn was not how to defend against or neutralize an attacker, but how to fall properly when beaten.

Not all failures are equal.

If decision-makers wish to continue learning a certain task and eventually reach any type of achievement, they will need to ensure that

• the pain of failure is bearable,
• it’s easy to get back up again.

Hence, those who ultimately reach a certain level of success may not be particularly better at withstanding losses and defeats. Instead, they could be better at defining their failures and designing them in a way that doesn’t knock them out of the game, allowing them to continue their quest.