I believe in celebrating failure, redefining it as a positive, seeing failure as a sign of progress. Apparently, Scott Westcott at the National Federation of Independent Businesses agrees, at least a little. His article, The Fruits of Failure, explores some examples, and encourages giving failure awards, and I applaud him for researching and writing it.
Unfortunately, Westcott comes off as timid. Tom Watson’s admonition to double your rate of failure to achieve success worries him:
While doubling a failure rate could doom many small businesses, allowing for some strategic failures could end up boosting your business and employee morale.
I think Westcott is wrong on this point. Doubling the failure rate does not spell doom. Doubling the failure rate means doubling the activity rate for innovation. Unless there is something fundamentally wrong, that means doubling the success rate, too.
Rural entrepreneurs can’t afford to be timid. The enemy of small town businesses isn’t failure; it’s stagnation.
small biz rural entrepreneurship failure success
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.
- About the Author
- Latest by this Author
Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
Hi Becky,
I’ld like to agree with you, that doubling your failure rate would also double your sucess rate.
You are, however, making a small mistake, as a rate is (at least as I understand it) a relation between two diferent counts. In the specific case of a failure rate, I would set/expect it as a rate between total activity count and the failure count. So, doubling your failure rate would reduce your sucess rate, not double it.
However, I do agree with your idea that doubling your failure count would double your sucess count, in normal circunstancies.
I’ld go a bit further, and say that each failure should be a good reason to start again, with the aquired experience as a lighthouse.
An year ago I was terribly reluctant to create my first small bussiness, and now, shuting it, I know that in a few months I’ll start again.
The failure rate was too big in my company to let it survive, but the experience conquested too important. I know that as I failed, I learned how, and in most cases why.
themage
Mage, thanks for a very well thought out comment.
I appreciate your explanation of the difference between ‘rate’ and ‘count’. This phrase was present in Tom Watson’s original quote, or at least the version handed down through IBM’s history.
Ultimately, I think Watson’s point is do more, try more, experiment more. That leads to more failures, but also to more successes.
Your phrase “start again, with the acquired experience as a lighthouse” is terrific. That is a wonderful way of putting it. I hope many small business people will follow your example and learn from their hard-fought failures.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!