Why does failure matter?
and the 3 steps to analyse your failures (and successes)
After watching the Last Dance Netflix show and seeing Michael Jordan miss the last shot, it inspired me to write about the system I developed to deal with failures.
When you have it right, most of the time, you carry on and don't take the time to reflect on why it worked. However, when it goes south, you'd like to learn from your failures.
No matter the outcome of what you are doing, you should focus on the process, seeking improvements which will allow you to make progress and build up resilience.
Now, this certainly doesn't mean that failure is a guarantee of future success but failure becomes an important stepping stone to greater things (i.e. learning and improving).
In life, the lack of success can hit you at any given time, starting as a kid with the frustration when climbing the tree was forbidden, losing your first soccer or tennis game, repeating a year at school.
When you grow up, it follows you throughout your life: not getting your dream job or well deserved promotion or even better, failing your first company.
As you can understand, the important thing is to give it a try. I like to call it the “power of asking or trying”, if you don’t ask or try, you’ll never be able to fail or succeed.
Success and failure are the same results of the same thing: “Trying” from Alex Banayan
After a failure, most of the time, you move on and forget about it. You tend to use the same path as a successful attempt: no learnings.
What should you do instead? First of all, step back, learn from your failures and finally try again and harder. Now doing this is no easy task. It’s a process and we will cover the 3 steps framework I personally use below.
In experiment we trust
One of our values at Seedstars is in "experiment we trust" (based on the growth machine framework from Brian Balfour), running experiments means you will fail a lot. We expect our team to try, fail and learn. You cannot learn what product or idea will work without being willing to discover what won’t work.
Entrepreneurship is about making a large quantity of small tests in the shortest timeframe available and learning from these tests. Most of the tests fail, but that’s how you learn. You want to establish a never-ending regular cadence of experimentation to basically fight through the failures, to find the successes, and really find that momentum that keeps carrying you forward. The sooner you identify what doesn't work, the sooner you can find out what will.
As an example, when we were testing the offline and online acquisition marketing channels for one of our ventures, we tried to experiment as many channels as we could to see which one was bearing the potential fastest and best results to test more of our other assumptions. We found out that Facebook ads targeted to a specific age group was an interesting channel. We stopped all others and went full steam experimenting and digging into this one alone to learn more about it.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" from Thomas Edison after repeated unsuccessful attempts to create a light bulb
A failure gives you the unique opportunity to succeed in the future from those lessons learned. If you can get something out of a failure, you've succeeded.
Failure itself does not really matter, what matters is how you are dealing with it and what you learn from it and how you can recognise a similar pattern in the future.
Setting your own benchmarks before hitting reality
The dictionary says that failure is "the fact of someone or something not succeeding". It means there's an expectation of success. Most of the time, who set those expectations? others: parents, teachers or adversaries. They set them against benchmarks that could be real, fake, low or high.
As an example, having a 3 out of 10 chances to succeed and being considered one of the best ever in your domain? how is that even possible? Enters Ted Williams one of the best baseball hitters in history who failed 70% of the time he stepped up to bate. Similarly speaking, a venture capital investor needs to be right at 1% of his investments for his fund to "succeed". When you look at those statistics individually without knowing the context, they certainly look awful!
Personally, I start looking at what are the available benchmarks, then I compare those with the best out there and finally based on those two combined set my own expectations (unfortunately, most of the time, not ambitious enough because as everyone else, I like to achieve my goals). I wrote my goals down and then I’m head down to achieve them. I only look back when I’m done.
Remember, you should be the one setting your own expectations, it is important to give your absolute best at it. However, at the end, the only way to know you really did give your best is to confront your reality with others and analyse what went well and not so well.
The 3 steps to analyse your failures (and successes)
Since failure is a fact of life, there are ways to deal with it so you'll be able to overcome the setback and prepare yourself for the success.
Take a step back and recharge
When you have failed, it's important to analyse the situation which lead to the outcome
Processing a failure, ridding yourself of your emotions, and finding your logical reasoning can take time
Whether it's your family, good friends, a place to visit, let yourself recharge with familiar comforts
When you have found peace then move to step 2
Learn from your failures
Drill down on why it failed and write down your learnings and thought process leading to the failure. Don’t make excuses. Admit you fail and it was only your fault, own it (Extreme Ownership from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin)
Use the "Why" powerful tool to identify the root cause. Start with the error and keep asking "Why?" until you get to it (Sakichi Toyoda, the Japanese industrialist, inventor, and founder of Toyota Industries, developed the 5 Whys technique in the 1930s). Even after you’ve come to satisfactory answers, keep digging and asking “Why”. Great resources in this regard are: the 5 Whys, the Root Cause technique, and True North.
Hang onto the lessons and the knowledge (remember knowledge is power) gained from a failure.
Failure is not the end of the world. And without failure, there can’t be success. Commit to improve and put them into practice.
Keep in mind that the outcome (failure) is not the problem, instead focus on the following variables:
Integrity: Did I handle myself with honesty and integrity and show up as the best version of myself?
Effort: Did I give all I had and did my best?
Try again
Acting on what you have learned will require motivation and discipline. You need to identify tools, knowledge, skills or resources that will keep you from repeating the error
This resilience is a requirement for success. You'll only truly be a failure if you stop trying.
Sometimes, you don't get a second chance or attempt, it might be even harder (or take longer) to take a step back and recharge. When you feel free, choose another topic and this time move on ;)
Remember, you cannot fail unless you quit
Use this framework not only for failures but also for your successes.
When you think about all of it, what most people are afraid is not the failure itself, it’s the rejection. How other people are going to look at them if they fail.
Watch this fantastic TedX from Jia Jiang which concludes with:
“Every time you feel the slightest rejection, it’s easier to just run away from the problem instead of facing it. So the next time you get rejected, when you are facing the next obstacle or next failure, consider the possibilities. Don't run. If you just embrace them, they might become your opportunities”.
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P.S. special thanks to Horatiu and Alex for being the first feedback readers.