Fail Forward Fastly
Go Further Faster In Business Through Iterations
If you are the kind of person who lives for the win, then you must also live for the failure. Almost every great athlete, business mind, and creator will tell you that they have for more scripts, sketches, failed ideas, and missed shots than they do wins. One of the most famous quotes from Michael Jordan is him outlining how many times he has failed the game winning shot and missed the critical free throw. In that quote he mentioned how many times he has failed, and attributes that very failure to his success.
With all of these well known examples of failure being a key element to success, why then does the opportunity to fail seem to be difficult for so many?
In coach training we were asked to embrace the phrase that I chose to use as the title of this Blog; Fail Forward Fastly. Never mind that it’s oddly worded and likely improperly structured, it makes a point, that failure can be done while moving forward. In the element of executive coaching you can only coach what the client gives you, so if the interaction is guarded, or the client is having a hard time opening up and speaking in code, the coach can only work with what they are given. In order to create a shift or breakthrough with the client, they must embrace the idea that some of what they say or do may not land well with the client at all, however it might move the dance towards the client’s desired outcome closer. So a willingness to fail while moving forward is key.
Working with startups, especially deep tech, the additional “Fastly” is critical. The race for time to try an iteration and learn from it is essential in a competitive landscape. How many products have died in a lab because they just had failure to launch? They planned too long and tried to mitigate risk and therefore never launched. This is an age-old challenge for anyone making decisions in leadership. We can go all the way back to Xerxes to see that this was a concern as our very civilization was developing. In Herodotus’ “Histories” Xerxes is mentioned as speaking with his Uncle Artabanus just before his armies were to move across the Hellespont and invade Greece. He leans into the thought about failing forward Fastly by saying “Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear, than to analyze every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers.” Xerxes remained focused and committed with all of his might to the possibility of the WIN, not to expending energy on mitigating his losses. Founders must embrace this idea and avoid getting stuck in analysis paralysis searching for the perfect approach. Instead they must iterate, and learn from what works and what doesn’t work.
The idea of iterations is not unfamiliar to the world of software, both on the development side and the consumer side, we have become accustomed to trying early software, participating in feedback, and seeing better and more reliable versions meet our needs. The first iteration of Netflix involved you adding movies to your queue and when they become available the DVD (yes.. remember this?) would be mailed to you. You could keep it for as long as you like (making Blockbuster eat their late fees) and return it when you were finished. Then came a hybrid of some streaming and some DVD usage. Eventually we moved to all streaming, and now we have huge studios opening films on streaming services, and Netflix produced original content. Then algorithms that suggest material to all of us have gotten smarter and many would agree much better at recommendations than a decade ago. It did not start perfect, it just started. Netflix had many failures, but they failed forward fastly and became a disruptive force in how entertainment would be delivered.
Ray Dalio in his book ‘Principles’ outlines his model for embracing iterations and how critical they are to bringing ideas to life. Life Principle 1.3a states that “Radical Open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change.” Ray goes on to say “Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the efficiency of those feedback loops, because it makes what you are doing, and why, so clear to yourself and others that there can’t be any misunderstandings. The more open-minded you are, the less likely you are to deceive yourself — and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are “believable” people (and it’s very important to know who is “believable”), you will learn a lot from them. Being radically transparent and radically open-minded accelerates this learning process. It can also be difficult because being radically transparent rather than more guarded exposes one to criticism. It’s natural to fear that. Yet if you don’t put yourself out there with your radical transparency, you won’t learn.” Putting yourself out there is another way of saying… be willing to FAIL. Ray is making the case that failure is tantamount to learning, and as founders we must all be wide open to new learnings. His feedback loop/iteration model is shared here below.
You can have the brightest insights, the deepest passion, and some of the most brilliant and disruptive technology the world has seen in some time, and if you fail to launch it’s an idea that dies hard. The world needs great ideas, bravery, and leaders who are willing to fail in order to change the world. Imagine if Gates, Jobs, and Woz hadn’t built those machines and software in their garages, or if Elon hadn’t been crazy about blowing up and crashing dozens of rockets before he landed one back on that platform. The race to commercialized space travel has accelerated because Branson, Musk, and even Bezos have been willing to be wrong publicly more than they have been right. For you to achieve greatness you must embrace great failures, which are no failures at all as long as you take the leanings.
Maybe you’ll consider embracing this funny phrase of “Fail Forward Fastly”. It’s about moving forward more than anything else. Progress is everything, and we can only achieve that through a willingness to sometimes simply throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Just be sure to make note of what kind of spaghetti, how far you threw it, the temperature at which it is stuck, and if it was gluten free or not. Then iterate with good learnings to see what happens on your next approach.
For 20 years now a small dog tag has hung from my rear view mirror in my vehicle. It has a familiar logo on it, the brightly colored red and yellow crest that in pop culture is a symbol for truth, justice, and a way of life that involves integrity — the crest of Superman. It’s a small daily reminder for me from the Christopher Reeve foundation that there is only one direction to move. It simply states; “Go Forward”. Thank you to all of the innovators who are out there every day, putting themselves on the line with a willingness to “Fail Forward Fastly.” We at Prime Movers Lab salute you and look forward to seeing the things you create to change the world.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
Sign up here if you are not already subscribed to our blog.
