Failing Successfully

by Mark S. Fulton

This is the time of year when many people engage in the folly of making resolutions that won’t last as long as holiday dinner leftovers. Rather than cook up half-baked promises to start working out or stop working 60 hours a week, you should focus on your failures from last year.

You read that correctly. We are far too eager to slam the door on past failures before we take full advantage of the lessons they hold for us. British poet John Keats once wrote, “Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.”

Okay, you probably don’t want to hop on the freeway to failure voluntarily, but there are few roads in life that don’t intersect it from time to time. So why not hunt for the insights that lie buried in your blunders?

Author John Maxwell explores this idea in his book “Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones.” Maxwell says that successful people recognize failure as a critical part of growing—both personally and professionally. They view each failure as an isolated incident that holds a secret for future success.

Finding pearls of wisdom in the oyster bed of bad experiences is a profitable enterprise. However, it’s still a good idea to recognize the currents that can carry you toward failure before you are swept away by them. No sense getting off course more than you have to.

According to Maxwell, there are nine key categories of business failure. Ask yourself if any of them may have kept you from achieving an objective:

• Lack of focus. There is great truth to this old saw: Fail to plan, plan to fail. Are you too busy to plan for your success? Is your time monopolized by dealing with “urgent” concerns rather than working on important tasks? If so, you may be setting yourself up to make costly mistakes and waste valuable resources.

One way to combat the time bandit is to create a haven where he can’t get to you. Schedule an appointment with yourself each week. Treat it as the most important appointment on your calendar—because it is. Use that time to focus on long term goals and to do things that will move you toward them.

• Inadequate commitment. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up,” said Thomas Edison. In his search for a new storage battery, Edison performed 50,000 experiments before he hit on a solution. When asked about the huge number of failures, he said, “Why, I’ve gotten a lot of results. I know 50,000 things that won’t work.”

The last time you failed at something, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? The next time you’re faced with failure, before you throw in the towel, consider the possibility that the next attempt could lead to a breakthrough.

• Unwillingness to change. In his wildly popular book, “Who Moved My Cheese?,” author Spencer Johnson argues that getting what we want in life—our “cheese”—requires us to anticipate, monitor and adapt to the reality of change. The book’s conclusion is pretty blunt: change or die. That’s especially true in the world of business. Change is the energizing force that keeps your enterprise from slipping into stagnation, the twilight zone between success and insolvency.

It takes great courage to initiate positive, purposeful change. Failing to change when change is called for creates a vacuum that invites failure. Francis Bacon wrote, “Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.” Inflexibility is the first stage of business rigor mortis.

• Bad fit. You or someone who works for you may not be suited to a accomplishing an assignment because of mismatched skills, personality or values. Discerning when a person’s talents aren’t compatible with a task usually isn’t difficult. Judging a person’s principles simply requires careful observation. However, evaluating the suitability of an individual’s personality for a particular job can be a lot harder.

One helpful tool is the DISC Behavior Styles Analysis. The DISC assessment sorts people by their personality type.

“D” types—dominant, driving, doer—are task-oriented and outgoing. They like challenge, control and choices. “D’s” want to be in charge and get the job done—today, not tomorrow.

“I” types—inspirational, influential and impulsive—are people-oriented, outgoing individuals who love recognition and being the center of attention.

Steady, stable and supportive—the “S” behavior type is people-oriented and reserved. Quintessential team players, “S’s” love appreciation and approval.

Details, details, details. “C’s” love details. “Why” is the favorite word of the behavior style that is task-oriented and reserved. Need something done correctly? Give it to a “C,” who lives by the motto “Measure twice, cut once.”

You can get more information about DISC and order adult profile assessments at www.personality-insights.com.

As you set your sights on accomplishing new achievements, don’t forget to discover all you can from your disappointments.

Column Note: In the next edition of Business Sense, we’ll examine more traps that lead to business failure—and how to avoid them.

Copyright 2002 © Mark S. Fulton