It’s safe to say that, either in business or in life, nobody sets out to fail or enjoys it when it happens. Yet at the same time it can’t be avoided completely, especially for business leaders who want to innovate or try new things. Some amount of failure is inevitable. The key to success is often not to avoid failure entirely, but to make the most of it as a learning and growth experience when it happens. Here are five tips that will help you to seize the potential of failure to serve as a growth catalyst that propels your business forward toward future successes.
Tip 1: Start with a mindset shift.
If you view adversity and challenges as insurmountable obstacles, then you’ll be less likely to find and try creative solutions and ways forward. A defeatist view of failure also puts you in the mindset of a victim—someone who is at the whim of circumstance and doesn’t have agency to shape their own path forward. That’s never a place you want to be in as a business owner.
Overcoming this starts by adjusting the way you see challenges. Try to view them as opportunities for growth. If the solution you attempt fails, the first question you want to ask is, “What can I learn from this?”
Tip 2: Study and analyze your failures.
People often don’t like to think about their failures but avoiding them isn’t going to make them disappear. The more you know about why the failure happened and what the results of it were, the better you can avoid making the same mistake in the future.
Exactly what kind of data and information you should gather depends in part on your field and the nature of the failure. The first step to any effective failure analysis is to define the problem as clearly and concisely as possible. Think about not just what the failure was, but also what outcome you hoped to achieve, where you believe things went awry, and what type of data you need to collect to determine if that is the case.
The data you use in a failure analysis will often come from within your organization. In other cases, you may find it helpful to gather feedback from customers or clients. Once you have all the information you need, conduct a statistical analysis to identify trends, patterns, or outliers that can help you to determine the true cause of the failure.
Tip 3: Make changes based on what you learn.
Even in cases where a failure was caused by an individual mistake, or something that happened in the broader market which was outside of your control, a failure is still an opportunity to make your processes and systems more robust so you’re less susceptible to these kinds of disruptions.
Along with conducting a failure analysis as mentioned above, this is also an excellent opportunity to take stock of your strengths and weaknesses, both as a leader and as an organization. Identify the areas where you can most benefit from improvement, as well as any resources or strengths that you’re currently underutilizing. Then, based on this information you’ve collected, make adjustments to your operations or work process that can help you to prevent a similar failure in the future.
Tip 4: Practice compassion and empathy, with yourself and your team.
Every individual and organization experiences failures. While it’s normal to feel disappointment, frustration, anxiety, or shame after a failure, you also don’t want to let the experience negatively impact how you view yourself, your company, or your work. Experiencing a failure doesn’t mean that you are a failure. That may seem like a subtle distinction but, by making it, you can dramatically improve how you move forward from it.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should pretend like the failure didn’t affect you. Let yourself and your team feel and process the emotions that come up, without judgment. It’s also important to give yourself time and space for self-care that can help to restore your sense of self-worth and self-confidence.
Finally, be kind to yourself and the other people on your team. Devolving into finger-pointing or blame will only make it more difficult to move forward because it erodes the morale of the team and can prevent you from moving forward to fix the problem if you’re stuck on finding someone or something to blame for it.
Tip 5: Seek support.
Failure can feel like a very isolating experience. When you’re in the midst of it, it can seem like you’re the only one suffering, or the only one who could possibly understand what you’re going through.
The truth is, though, like we said above, everyone experiences failures. Knowing that you’re not alone, and other people have made it through similar things before, can be very helpful for overcoming it and moving forward.
If you have a mentor or peer support group, talk to them about what you’re going through, and ask them for advice on how they’ve dealt with similar situations in the past. Even if they don’t have advice to offer, simply talking about the problem with other people you trust and respect can help you see that you’re not alone, and that can make it easier to get through to the other side.
