Can You Please Stop Being Afraid Of Failure
We can’t predict the future but we can create it.
If we look back over the last few years, we realize that there have been a significant number of disruptive events.
Whether it’s in the world, in markets, in our work or simply in our personal lives. It is impossible to predict these changes with great accuracy.
This raises an interesting question then:
Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, sometimes even in chaos, while others fail?
Indeed, some companies and leaders are surfing the wave of uncertainty with flying colors. They don’t just react, they create. They not only survive, they dominate. They not only succeed, they thrive.
These leaders and organizations do not build on chaos but thrive through it.
How To Cope With Uncertainty
New companies generally do not anticipate market opportunities correctly. As a result, they are forced to adapt and change their approach over time.
Often, when a new company succeeds, it finds itself in a market other than the one initially targeted and with a product or service that is not quite the one imagined at the very beginning of the project. It’s called pivoting.
It’s a necessary strategic repositioning when the company realizes that the viability of its product is threatened.
Pivots are essential constants in the life of growing companies. However, pivoting is not simply an exhortation to change but is what makes a company resilient when facing failure.
It’s a coping mechanism against the uncertainty of the world.
Entrepreneurs Should Embrace Uncertainty
The entrepreneur must be the first line of defense against uncertainty.
It must absorb it and help his employees cope with this feeling of powerlessness. It is essential that employees are not afraid of making decisions and mistakes.
You don’t have to be completely right every time, you just have to be right enough often enough.
This requires an above-average level of resilience, which is one of the greatest entrepreneurial strengths.
Resilience is not so much about responding to an isolated crisis or rebounding from a setback. It’s always anticipating and adjusting to these new trends that can profoundly harm and affect the quintessence of a company.
Being resilient is having the ability to change before the change becomes obvious.
It’s the ability to rebuild yourself over and over again.
Most companies go from success to failure and to go back again to success. A company that fails to adjust to its environment will quickly lose its legitimacy and the support of its customers and shareholders.
Thriving Through Failure
Failure is on the road to success. There’s no way around that.
Being afraid of failing quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You should therefore not fear failure but rather make it your partner, become one with it.
“Ah you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!”
— Bane (The Dark Knight Rises, 2012)
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs can make is investing too much time in a project or idea that just doesn’t work. The concept is not viable but he or she does not realize it until it is too late.
Rather, a culture of failure must be built throughout the company’s journey and adjusted as you move forward.
In my opinion, the old-fashioned trial and error learning is a good way to build this culture of failure. It consists in actively seeking new information and adjusting the company’s activities in a flexible way.
This iterative solution allows you to solve new and innovative problems as information becomes more and more available.
Take a look at any new technology: planes, bicycles, vacuum cleaner, etc. They all come from trial and errors because there’s no way you can build a good technology without going through a huge number of failures.
Errors are essential to success.
« You can’t predict anymore. But that doesn’t matter — what is important is that you must be able to adapt and exploit — be agile enough to guess where the value is going and position yourself to exploit it if it does. »
— Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric for 20 years.
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