Failure is an opportunity

Henry Ford said that ‘Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently’.

The word failure in business is often shied away from and it is true, it is a strong word. For the purpose of this blog let’s consider it as being when things don’t go exactly to plan, and let’s reframe it because we believe that failure is an opportunity.

It provides an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to make a different choice, a different decision, to make sure that something doesn’t happen again. It also provides you with the opportunity to grow and develop yourself further.

Consider this, have you ever grown from solving an easy task? When everything is going smoothly and there are no challenges you aren’t developing new skills. Don’t get us wrong, comfort zones are nice places to be for a while but make sure you don’t stay for too long or you might be missing out on growth.

When you are facing a challenge or don’t achieve a big goal, see it as an opportunity to increase your mental strength and improve your chances of succeeding next time. Like training a muscle in the gym.

Embrace adversity and analyse things that haven’t gone to plan. Ask yourself why you didn’t achieve your goal. Was it because of a lack of effort or the wrong strategies? How can you do better next time?

It offers the chance to re-evaluate and come back stronger with a different approach. Take these famous examples:

• Albert Einstein said: “I have tried 99 times and have failed, but on the 100th time came success.”
• Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.
• Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed.
• Oprah Winfrey was fired from an early job as a television news anchor.
• Sir James Dyson suffered through 5,126 failed prototypes before he landed on the first working Dyson vacuum.

Whether failure is final or not ultimately depends on your ability to get yourself off the ground, dust yourself off, learn from it, and try again. The faster you can do that, the sooner you will turn things around.

We believe that one of the most important things in business is having a growth mindset – seeing the opportunities in adversity, seeing the possibilities when things don’t go to plan. If you need some help to embed a growth mindset culture in your organisation, get in touch – we can help. Drop us a line to find out more: hello@dicebusiness.co.uk