Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins

In business, the concepts of “success” and “failure” are more ambiguous than most people acknowledge. Not only are there many different ways to define both these terms but frequently, short-term failures lay the foundation for long-term success. That means these failures are an unavoidable part of the pathway to succeeding.

The best way to fall behind in a shifting economy is to rely on what worked in the past – formulas that have grown obsolete. Instead, companies need to encourage their innovators to learn more by making productive mistakes. In this environment, managers should worry less about rewarding success and focus more on learning from both failure and success.

In many ways, success is the ultimate business paradox. The less we chase success itself, the more likely we become to genuinely succeed. Success actually isn’t all that different from failure. The truly great business enterprises find ways to motivate everyone to put in their best efforts to be creative. In that kind of environment, the short-term results matter little because the organization will be positioned advantageously for the long haul.

1. The Fallacy Everything is Either a Success or Failure  

The terms “success” and “failure” defy definition because everyone has their own unique perspective on what each one means. In real life, it’s usually impossible to untangle the two because many successes are achieved by applying the lessons learned from each failure. Therefore, both are necessary and essential.

It’s very rare for any individual to achieve success as they define it. Even high achievers frequently feel like their success is undeserved, the result of happy coincidences rather than any conscious act on their part. Or they may dwell on their seemingly rare failures as the true measure of their life’s work. The same is true in businesses. Many of the great commercial success stories have arisen out of the ashes of temporary defeats.

Most high achievers really aren’t all that concerned whether a project turns out to be a success or a failure. Instead, they crave intense experiences where they can be fully engaged in what’s going on. For these people, the outcome is less important than the ability to bring to bear their very best efforts.

2. The Agony of Victory vs. the Thrill of Defeat

When you or your organization face a challenge that’s so absorbing it compels you to put in your best efforts, whether the project is a success or failure becomes of secondary interest.

Being part of the action has its own rewards, its own motivations. High achievers are just as motivated by their failures as they are by their successes – maybe more so. Sometimes, it takes a crisis to move the organization in the right direction. When organizations confront a strong commercial challenge:

• A sense of cohesion and flexibility emerges.

• Differences of opinion seem less important.

• People feel bound together by shared adversity.

• Various individuals have an opportunity to show their talents.

• Ingrained parts of the culture fade into irrelevance.

In short, smart managers should use calamities as catalysts for change rather than embarrassing failures to be swept under the carpet.

3. Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Unless a business is prepared to fail with its early offerings, it will never learn what the marketplace wants. Failures also indicate a willingness to be innovative and try new things. In short, failure is often a precursor to lasting success.

The very essence of a free market is constant corrections – businesses fine-tune their products and services by getting feedback on what consumers like and what they don’t. This is especially true when the marketplace is in a state of flux or rapid evolution. Failures can mean the organization is starting to make the changes required to position itself for success in the future.

In total, success often comes disguised as initial failure. Progress is seldom ever made in a straight line forward. Instead, most advances are the result of a series of mistakes and corrections. By addressing each of those mistakes, the business learns what’s required to ultimately succeed. Therefore, managers should actually be encouraging their teams to make more mistakes, not less – so long as everyone takes notice of the lessons each mistake holds.

4. Nothing Fails Like Success

In just the same way as failure has a surprising upside, success has an equally novel downside. It lulls people and organizations into a sense of complacency. When that happens, there is no motivation to keep making more changes. That, in turn, makes it harder to keep doing whatever is needed to stay a success.

Surprisingly, individuals and organizations can have too much success. In short, success is a challenge. Unless external accolades and accomplishments are matched by an inner sense of achievement, too much recognition can be a sizeable problem.

Reflection is needed before a true perspective on success can evolve and grow. And that will require the time to absorb everything that’s happening.

5. The Downside of Success

Whenever an organization (or person) enjoys a great success, there is a temptation to slip into cruise control and protect one’s accomplishments rather than staying focused. Everyone just assumes past successes can now be duplicated effortlessly. The opposite is true. The more success any person or individual enjoys, the harder it becomes to continue doing what’s needed to stay successful in the future.

Being successful inhibits flexibility. There is little desire to do things differently, because what worked in the past was so good. The only problem is the world keeps changing, and any resources which are devoted to duplicating past successes can’t be applied to searching for what will be needed in the future.

The real essence of the problem with past successes is organizations need to keep evolving constantly if they are to flourish in an economy that is continually changing. Marketplace success removes an incentive for the firm to change. Farsighted companies reinvent their cultures before they are forced to. From this perspective, setbacks are the price of innovation.

6. Innovating With Attitude

The key to being innovative is openness. The best innovators don’t necessarily have cutting edge technologies or managers using advanced management techniques. To be more innovative, people have to be free to see the obvious with fresh eyes. 

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no shortage of new ideas. Even an average brainstorming session can generate lots of fresh thinking about any subject you choose. What is in short supply, however, is receptivity to innovative suggestions. Many organizations are emotionally incapable of rethinking what they do and, therefore, miss what’s obvious and staring them in the face.

The best new ideas never come from exotic development programs, but grow out of the commonsense observations of the people who are most involved. An innovative organization picks up on these ideas and runs with them. Conversely, in most organizations, there is too much invested in doing business as usual to reconfigure processes to take advantage of fresh ideas. Therefore, everyone hunkers down and focuses on improving what they now do rather than look for something entirely radical and different.

7. Managing in the Post-failure Era

Managers need to understand how difficult it can be to separate success and failure in a rapidly changing world. While it would be counterintuitive to actually celebrate each and every failure, smart managers carefully examine both successes and failures with equal interest. The result is only one element – savvy managers look at what can be learned from each outcome.

Enlightened managers understand both successes and failures ultimately cross-fertilize each other, and that changing circumstances means most projects won’t work out as planned. Instead of making a distinction between success and failure, a better managerial approach is to differentiate between mistakes that are “excusable” and those that are “inexcusable”.

By evaluating these questions, smart managers learn to treat both success and failure like the siblings they are. In sport, good coaches help their players take both wins and losses in their stride. An effective manager does the same. Rather than focus on creating more successes, the goal is to increase the organization’s intellectual capital. This occurs whenever the workforce has more knowledge, experience or ability to think creatively. And thus, intellectual capital increases can be derived from both successes and failures so long as the lessons available are taken onboard.

8. The Importance of Managing Fear to Harness It

Fear undermines the ability to innovate. Therefore, to encourage innovation, good managers help their employees cope with fear. They create an atmosphere where it’s alright to fail – because everyone else fails from time to time themselves.

Actually, these fears are so universal if we can find ways to transcend them, it puts us in a very advantageous position. All of the great success stories of history have persevered in the face of criticism and ridicule from others. In fact, it is only those who are willing to risk looking foolish that come up with the real breakthroughs.

Paradoxically, fear can be a great ally of accomplishment. It can stimulate a person to do their very best work. High achievers don’t let fear stand in their way. Instead, they do things despite feeling nervous, apprehensive or afraid. Courage is never defined as the total absence of fear, but the ability to carry on in spite of being afraid. Fear is a very valuable commodity. It signals when we should be alert. If a business has too little fear, it becomes complacent and overconfident. Fear delivers an edge that forces us to upgrade our performance and put in our very best efforts. In that way, fear can be highly beneficial.

9. Success is Actually More Likely If We Don’t Pursue It

Counterintuitively, the more we concentrate on trying to be a success, the less likely it is that we will achieve our goal. The real key is to become so immersed in what we’re doing that the challenge of working to our maximum potential consumes our entire energy and focus. Once we reach that state, whether we succeed or fail becomes less important than whether or not we put in our very best effort. 

A genuinely successful organization doesn’t pursue success or failure. Instead, it encourages personal engagement on the part of everyone involved. The organization will then have a risk friendly and failure tolerant environment, where everyone will be encouraged to harness the fear of failure as a source of energy and focus.

By looking at success and failure differently, we move beyond putting arbitrary labels on outcomes and into a realm where the focus is on being the best person you can be. In this environment of total absorption, everyone is challenged to fulfill their true potential. Build that kind of organization and it won’t matter how the world evolves, a way to move forward will be found.

In the final analysis, genuine success is an unfolding process rather than a state. As we achieve various things, we elevate our vision and glimpse more of our true potential. That, in turn, elevates our vision still more and fills us with new expectations. It’s the pursuit of ever expanding goals that generates happiness and a feeling of well-being, both for individuals and for organizations. This goes beyond glib titles like “success” or “failure” and into the realm where true human potential is being harnessed.

For many people and businesses, the most profound successes are accomplished well away from the public gaze. Public acclaim can be fickle, but genuine accomplishments generate feelings of satisfaction. And the more we achieve, the more our past successes seem like a plateau we can use to launch ongoing efforts to move forward. There is no lasting and permanent state of success. Instead, our reach always needs to exceed our grasp. Success itself is a target in perpetual motion, a spur to excellence.

Richard Farson is a published author and president of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, a think tank that brings influential leaders together to consider policy issues.

Ralph Keyes is a Fellow of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute and is the author of several books.

Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants are recognized as one of North Americas leading authorities in Telecommunications. Our consultants are dedicated to helping businesses save money, add security and improve efficiencies.