In Praise of Failure

“The man who’s been beaten is worth two who haven’t.” Russian proverb

I never thought I’d find myself quoting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a message to managers. But Putin’s use of this proverb in a business context got me thinking: Are we encouraging our employees to fail? I don’t mean allowing them not to learn the fundamentals of our business or of their jobs. I also don’t mean allowing them to make the same mistakes repeatedly.

I’m asking: Do we allow, even encourage, our employees, and ourselves, to try new ways of doing business—and accept that we might fail? Do we even celebrate small failures? Or do we only reward perfection, which often means business as usual? Especially in the uncertain times in which we live, our tendency can be to use the past to predict the future, what author Peter Sims calls “linear plans in a nonlinear world.” Just look at the shortage of good ideas on job creation coming from government at just about every level, along with big businesses sitting on the sidelines.

Entrepreneurs understand the benefits of failure. “Success is a lousy teacher.  It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” So wrote Bill Gates in his 1995 book, The Road Ahead. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, modeled his first stores around Italian coffeehouses: no chairs, opera music playing, menus written in Italian. The late Dr. Baruj Benacerraf won a Nobel Prize in medicine based on a discovery from a failed experiment. Even Steve Jobs failed in his first go-round with Apple!

Successful business people—successful people—understand that it’s in failure that one can next find success. Allow your people, and yourself, to take intelligent risks. Encourage creativity. Reward ideas. Talk openly about failures and figure out what you learned from them. (For some examples, see Sue Shellenbarger’s Better Ideas Through Failure on the Wall Street Journal.)

Be bold! You’ll find success and have some fun along the way.