Every great leader has made mistakes. And if you’re reading this, I’m guessing your human, so chances are good that you have too. The often-painful fact is that making mistakes is essential to improvement – if you aren’t making mistakes, than you’re not growing and learning. You aren’t striving to be anything better. And if you aren’t striving for anything better in business, the competition could outfox you.
Let’s look at some examples of failure in action and see what we can learn.
Steve Jobs
When Jobs started Apple in 1976 it was an initial success, but after an unsuccessful product launch in 1985, he was booted from his own company. Many people would give up at that point. Not Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs left and founded a company called NeXT. At first NeXT was unsuccessful, but it grew and eventually caught the eye of a struggling Apple. Apple purchased the company and brought Jobs back. Within a few years, he was launching breakthrough products that might sound familiar: the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Toyota Sienna
When the Toyota Sienna minivan was introduced stateside in 1997, the reviews were abysmal. It drove poorly and had design flaws like a complete lack of cup holders that were endlessly annoying to moms, their most influential consumers. So Toyota did something radical: Sienna engineers were ordered to go on a cross-country road trip to experience the van themselves and fix its flaws. It worked, and engineers quickly discovered their missteps. The next generation Sienna earned rave reviews and has continued to be one of the best selling minivans on the market for more than a decade.
Walt Disney
We all know Disney. What we might not know is that Walt Disney’s first animation studio was dissolved, leaving him unable to pay his rent. Even after the successful premiere of Snow White, many of Disney’s early movies – classics like Pinocchio and Fantasia – were financial failures in the short term.
So what are the lessons here? The next time you experience failure remind yourself that you’re in good company. Think about the stories I’ve outlined above or try asking someone you know who is successful if they’ve ever failed – it’ll make you feel better because invariably the answer will be yes.
And if you fail, how do you handle it? Address it. Own the mistake and be honest with your employees about what went wrong. Tell them that it was something you tried and that it just didn’t work. If you can, explain what you’ve learned and how it’ll be better the next time around. And don’t blame your employees, you’ll lose their respect and it will backfire eventually. Bottom line: pick yourself up, learn what you can from the experience, and force yourself to move on.
Perhaps I’ve proven with these examples what you already know: that failure is an opportunity to make something better and to evolve. Perhaps you’ll take a well-calculated risk sometime soon. I hope you do.
By Blair Koch