A few weeks ago, while teaching an MBA class at a local university, a student asked one of those questions not usually surfaced in front of one's peers: "How do you deal with failure?" Obviously, he isn't the only person dealing with the issue. In a recent blog, one well-known guru shared a few suggestions about building self-confidence and dealing with failure. He went on with recommendations to quit worrying about being perfect, learning to live with failure, and showing courage, even when you're scared on the inside. Another blogger interviewed a number of CEOs, all of whom stressed that their failures were not preventable, so they were able to pick themselves up and go on. Hmmm. . ??
Back to the student's question about how to deal with failure. At the time I had a few suggestions, but on further reflection, I've realized that's the wrong question. The better one is, "How do you succeed with failure?" Furthermore, when I'm dealing with an issue like that, the first question I ask is not about the conventional wisdom or blaming the circumstance, but whether or not there's some relevant research about the subject.
Why bother with conventional wisdom, when research on the subject is at hand. You'll find a stack of relevant research on dealing with failure by Stanford's Carol Dweck and her colleagues. The highly consistent research pooh-poohs answers like the above, and rightly so. Basically, she finds that your mindset determines the meaning of failure. If you live your life out of the traditional mindset, the belief that your talents and abilities are set in stone, and you fail, the responses are obvious. You'll keep quiet about your failure, stuff it, blame someone or the environment, and, perhaps never try that option again. As Dweck writes, In the fixed mindset. . . the loss of one's self to failure can be a permanent, haunting trauma. What's important to recognize is that the traditional mindset gives you no good recipe for overcoming failure. Ohhh, yahhhh. Some recipes, but long term they don't work very well, and that makes failure pretty difficult.
Admittedly, failure doesn't feel good for any of us. It can be a painful experience. But it needn't define you. Instead, if you have a growth mindset, failure is not a signal that you're not perfect. It's a signal that you've got something to learn. You can face it, deal with it, and learn from it.
My son-in-law, a research physician, tells me that failure is actually very useful. Failure lets you know what strategy won't work, and that can be useful data for a research project. In other words, failure is a signal that you're going to have to try some other alternatives.
So change your mindset and think of failure this way. Failure can hurt, but it doesn't define you. It's merely an annoucement that you've got to figure out some other alternatives. Change and growth are nearly always possible, and there are still many more paths to success.
Here are my steps for succeeding with failure:
- Go ahead and moan a few minutes. It's painful. Sometimes I beat my desk a few times and cuss. Remember the story of the first grade reading teacher who hit the car in front of her, got out and pointed to the dent, "oh, oh, oh. Look, look, look. Damn, damn, damn!" That works for me.
- Move on and dig into the failure to see what you can learn from it.
- Create some other ways of working with the situation. A little more elbow grease (do they still use that idiom?) or effort will be helpful.
- Remember that the next failure on the project means that you will know two things that won't work.
It's especially helpful to bring colleagues and experts into the process as soon as possible. I realize that some are not comfortable admitting failure to colleagues, but you can learn to announce that you blew it. It's rarely life or death. And always take advantage of the insights of others. Problem solving, creativity and innovation are, fundamentally, contact sports. You might also want to look at my white paper on asking questions.
David Silverman's blog on the subject of failure had an especially useful quote from Tom Watson, the founder of IBM: Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you will find success.
As Carol Dweck emphasizes throughout her book, Mindset, success is really all about effort.