Failed? Share It

Some years ago, after one of my talks, a smiling attendee came up to me and thanked me for my inspirational words. Wanting to capture exactly what I had said that was so inspiring, I smiled back as I asked her why she had this reaction. She said it was my stories of failure.

She told me that she went to a lot of talks and rarely heard any of the speakers tell any stories other than those describing their and others’ successes. She often left feeling inferior since she experienced results that were less than greatly successful on a regular basis.

What was wrong with her that she couldn’t recount an endless stream of successful outcomes rarely interrupted by something that turned out poorly?

What she heard from me was the story of how I got involved with a friend’s business helping him market a cool talking gadget he invented which I named Logotalker. We dumped lots of time and money into selling them. Everyone loved them…but no one bought them. Seems we couldn’t make them cheaply enough. I still have a pile of them on my desk to remind me of how a good idea loved by many…failed miserably. At other points in my talk I mentioned a couple of other experiences that had the same result…poor results or total failure.

In each case I explained how I made these mistakes…usually because of my failure to notice something, and the lessons I learned. Luckily most things I do turn out well so the failure stories were a small part of what I shared.

My talk made her realize that she wasn’t alone in not always winding up with spectacular results.

Since then, in my talks and with clients, I always mention relevant things that didn’t work out for me. Everyone has failures. Failures big and small. Many just wipe them from their memory never to be thought about again. And definitely not to be discussed in front of an auditorium full of people.

And yet, it’s been my experience that people are generally more interested in hearing about the things that failed than about the wild successes.

So I was intrigued when I read a review of the new book “Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg. Duhigg agrees that people focus on their successes and tend to ignore their failures. However, he also says “successful people spend an enormous amount of time seeking out information on failures by reading about companies that have gone bankrupt, asking colleagues who haven’t gotten promoted what went wrong, and asking themselves why a certain meeting or phone call did not go well.”

It turns out learning from failure is a great way to wind up successful. Engineers know this. Every explosion of a rocket launched to put a satellite into orbit leads to intense investigation into what went wrong…and how to ensure it never happens again. Research scientists know this. Every failed experiment leads to knowledge that improves the next attempt until the new antibiotic can kill all the germs.

But many don’t appreciate failure for the learning it brings. They’re embarrassed and unwilling to take responsibility and share what happened. Their opportunity to gain knowledge that helps them and others improve in the future is lost.

How much time do you spend thinking about your failures? Thinking, not blaming others or wallowing in despair. Thinking meaning investigating, discussing, figuring out what went wrong, and then finding a better way.

As odd as it might sound to many of you, spending less time celebrating your successes and more time analyzing your failures is an excellent path to greater success in the future.

And the more people you share your failures with, the more people will share their own failures opening up mutual opportunities for brainstorming new ideas and suggestions that help you all achieve greater success next time.

Logotalkers