Embrace Failure! Celebrate Failure!

As many readers know, I volunteer with Penn State University's Presidential Leadership Academy and Schreyer Honors College. I now include Penn State Global, Penn State Career Services, The Graduate School, and the Center for Global Engineering Experience. I've just returned from a week on campus, inspired by the students, staff, and faculty with whom I've interacted on topics like careers, global experience, and consulting.

Today I'd like to provide insights on the subject of failure. This word has such emotionally charged connotation. Are we supposed to feel we are somehow "less" as human beings if something sincerely attempted doesn't work out as planned? NO! "Failure is just the tuition for getting things right, nothing more." Who said that? I did, just now. It is in quotation marks to encourage you to commit this one-liner to memory and live by it.

The story is told that when Thomas Edison was trying to invent the incandescent light bulb, he was asked about his method for doing so. He'd have his lab assistants try all kinds of materials for the filament inside a glass bulb with no exposure to oxygen. Even this no oxygen insight required prior failures.

Just one filament, carbonized thread, lasted 40 hours. Not good enough. Replacement cost meant the economics of the marketplace would not work.

Edison is said to have tried about 940 other materials until a tungsten metal filament produced a practical bulb which would last. 940 FAILURES!! THOMAS EDISON FAILED HIS WAY TO SUCCESS! So should you.

Failure should be embraced, except when human safety and environmental safety are concerned. I do not wish the flight crew of the next airplane I board to go all "experimental" on me.

Is there anything else we should NOT do with failure? Yes, don't seek it deliberately. Follow the sage advice--"Never buy grief. Life gives you enough for free."

For the rest of life, try stuff. Do so intelligently. I believe (from experience) we should FAIL EARLY, FAIL SMALL, FAIL OFTEN, FAIL FORWARD, and FAIL UNIQUELY.

Working with leaders, I've observed those having their first failure in mid-career struggle emotionally to recover, extract the lesson, and move on. Those who fail early in career have less at stake and can be much more emotionally resilient when failure occurs. FAIL EARLY.

Failing small is the argument for doing a trial run or pilot project. Move from thought to action as quickly as the situation wisely allows. It is from the action the valuable learning from failure will occur. FAIL SMALL

Frequent failure can speed the path to successful results. You may have to try 940 variations to find this success. Failing often and quickly reduces regret emotions, speeds learning, and gives practice at forgiving yourself. "Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves". Include forgiving yourself. Conscientious people have a more difficult time of letting go of failures because they blame themselves. Victim mentality prevents moving on for others as they waste time and emotional energy decrying the role of others. Extract the lesson from failure and move on. FAIL OFTEN

What does it mean to fail forward? Imagine you are walking on a dirt road and fall down face forward. Hopefully you had your hands out. When you get back up again (huge metaphor here for moving beyond the failure), your feet should start the rest of your journey where your knees landed. You've just gained perhaps 20 inches forward progress. FAIL FORWARD

When we forget the lessons from each failure, we may repeat it. This wastes time, energy, and other resources. Each failure should be unique because you learn. Document your learning from each failure. FAIL UNIQUELY.

I recently learned a company which makes disposable medical products has turned failure into a competitive advantage. By making only small batches of new products, true use tests can be conducted in a few clinical settings. The prior practice was to make too many units of the new product innovations, causing the sales force and clinical personnel to visibly fail in much larger scale with hospital clients. Combining EARLY, SMALL, OFTEN, FORWARD, and UNIQUELY led to failure becoming the basis for competitive advantage. Like many things in life, thoughtful trial and error are an asset, where fear may prevent less thoughtful people from trying so as to avoid failure.

Conclusion--Embrace appropriate failure. Reject the fear of failure.