Complete Article List:
- Building a Creative Business Culture
- Defining Yourself
- 4 ½ Stages of Organizational Success
- How to Fail Your Way to Success
- Six Life Lessons I Learned in Vegas
- Making Sense of Humour in the Workplace
- The Art of Professionalism: Learning the Right Way to Get Ahead
- The Secrets of Effective Decision-Making
- The Customer Rules:
Surviving & Thriving in the New Customer-Driven World - The Fascination of Sport
- Are You a Twenty Percenter?
- The Times They are a Changin'
An Investigation of Five Future Trends - The Business of Global Greening: How Technology and Business are Saving the Planet
- The Changing Face of Charity: How Businesses and Individuals are Redefining Philanthropy
- Web 2.0: Business in a Connected World
- Searching for a Needle of Knowledge in an Information Haystack (pdf format)
- The Power of Design (pdf format)
Articles
How to Fail Your Way to Success
By Steve Bannister
Have a good look at the last five years of your life and pay particular attention to your successes and failures. Would your successes really have existed without your failures? Frequently, we jump to label someone or something as a "success" or "failure" without realizing that the terms themselves are complex. There are numerous examples of people emerging from small beginnings and turning "crazy ideas" into Fortune 500 Companies. A famous 1978 picture of the eleven Microsoft founders (a nerdy bunch) still circulates the internet with the caption, "Would you have invested?". A deeper analysis of success and failure reveals a blurred line of distinction.
The Slippery Side of Success
By now you may be wondering what's wrong with having personal and professional success. Nothing overall, but there are some notes of caution concerning success, namely;
- Be careful what you wish for. Success solves some problems (e.g. finances) and in turn creates other problems such as determining who your real friends are.
- Reaching a perilous plateau. Too often, good becomes good enough and great leads to resting on your laurels (if it ain't broke...).
- Get going again. Now that you have succeeded, a new level of energy is needed to maintain and continue succeeding.
- The creation of conflict. There are people who have helped you succeed. Some of these people will be pleased while others will be dissatisfied.
The Function of Failure
Even with all of the drawbacks of success you are probably thinking that it's still far better than failure, right? Well...maybe. Think about the following logic;
Failure is a result of making mistakes and mistakes lead to asking more questions. Questions lead to better understanding which in turn fosters smarter attempts to solving a problem. Eventually, success is attained through the continuous cycle of making mistakes, asking questions and making adjustments. Therefore, the function of failure is to ultimately achieve success.
Consider the following benefits of failure;
- Reinforcing risk. Failure requires taking risks and risk-taking is an essential cornerstone of success.
- Pinpointing the process. Failure focuses on fixing the process in an effort to keep moving forward. Less time is spent blaming the people involved.
- A theatre of thinking. When people fail they not only look to fix the specific problem but they also begin to ask the broader questions that they wouldn't normally ask. This inevitably leads to bigger breakthroughs and increased success.
- Maintaining motivation. Failure, when sprinkled with moments of success, provides a constant excitement to succeed.
Inevitably, true happiness involves adopting a more eastern cultural view of success and failure. Whereas, western culture looks at someone or something as being a success or a failure, eastern culture looks at more of a marriage of success and failure (think, ying and yang). Indeed, one cannot exist without the other. A truly successful life is attained when we focus solely on pursuing our passion; neither striving for success nor avoiding failure.
For info on how you may get permission to use this article
on your web site please contact Steve directly.
