How to reap the benefits of your mistakes
Nobody intentionally creates a product that fails or is rejected for a significant promotion. However, people are becoming more aware of the benefits of failing. According to Benjamin Jones, a professor at Kellogg, the notion that one grows stronger through failure is the kind of hard advice that people may tell themselves in trying times.
The "fail fast, fail often" mentality of startups, where it's accepted that failing is not just something to be endured but a crucial step on the path to success, has given this idea new life. How accurate is this widely held notion, though? When exactly can failure be advantageous? In a recent Kellogg Insights article, Kellogg faculty offer their opinions on the advantages of failing and how to accept and profit from your mistakes.
1. You probably make more mistakes than you realize.
Many of us believe that we miss the mark less than the average person, even when it comes to ethical lapses. According to Maryam Kouchaki, people tend to experience "unethical amnesia" when they recall their own unethical behaviors with less-than-perfect clarity. The more time that passes between an unethical incident and the moment of recall, the lower are the odds that they will recall much about the incident.
This selective remembering may make us more likely to repeat immoral behavior in the future. So, how can we reconcile our previous failures in order to prevent them from repeating themselves? "A habit of self-reflection helps to keep such memories alive," Kouchaki argues. This is what she teaches in her MBA classes: that taking time to reflect and learn from one's successes and disappointments is essential for becoming a strong leader.
2. Failure may be really beneficial to your career.
Dashun Wang, Benjamin Jones, and Yang Wang did a study that found that early failure can actually lead to later success. Prof. Dashun Wang says, "Failure is terrible, but it can also make people stronger." There is evidence that setbacks early in your career may help you in the long run.
Scientists who almost got a prestigious federal grant and scientists who did not get the grant were compared with each other in the study. Ten years later, what was the result? Those who didn't get the grant wrote papers that did better than those who did. Wang says that in the end, "the losers turned out to be better."
Why? Scientists who were not good enough didn't get the grant, so only the better ones kept writing papers. But even when they took that into account (by removing a similar number of scientists who did get the grant), the scientists who didn't get the grant still did better than those who did. Researchers came to the conclusion that being turned down was what drove the rejected scientists to succeed.
3. You get a good story out of it at the very least.
Of course, not every failure helps you get ahead in your career. What seems like a setback is sometimes just that. So how can you turn the lemons of your past into lemonade? Craig Wortmann, a clinical professor of innovation and entrepreneurship, says that you can use them to tell your own story. To show potential partners and collaborators that you would be a great person to work with, you need to tell a clear, powerful story that shows off your strengths. Stories about your failures can help you do this. Wortmann says that if you use your failure stories in the right way, they can show your character, your skills as a leader, or your drive. So when is the right time to tell one of your favorite stories about how you failed? Wortmann says it could be when you're talking to a possible client. "If you do this, it shows that you are humble, willing to learn, and easy to work with."
4. You can create a culture where failure is okay.
Even though failure can be helpful, it doesn't mean that people are eager to take the blame when something goes wrong. Unless they are in the military.
Ned Smith, a Kellogg professor, remembers going to the U.S. Army's National Training Center and seeing soldiers of all types and ranks step forward to say things that could be used against them in after-action reviews and debriefings. He said that it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that they are almost competing to take the blame.
Smith and Col. Brian Halloran, who used to be a senior fellow at Kellogg for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, talked about how the Army creates this culture of accountability.
"When a leader knows that what matters are the overall performance of the unit and the improvement of the unit as a whole, they are far more likely to openly discuss what didn’t go right." — Col. Brian Halloran, Senior Fellow and former U.S. Army Chief of Staff
One useful quirk is that officers from all over the army compete for promotions. Since the people on the promotion review board don't supervise the officers they are judging, the officers have less of a reason to try to save face after making a bad decision. Halloran says that when a leader knows that what matters is the unit's overall performance and improvement as a whole, they are much more likely to talk openly about what didn't go right.
5. What Looks Like a Success Is Sometimes a Failure Hiding in Plain Sight.
Imagine that you've spent months making a product better and better. You finally put together a focus group to find out what people think about the product, and the people in the group are thrilled. Your new product will almost certainly sell out quickly, right? Before calling it "the next big thing," you might want to find out who was in that focus group.
Professor Eric Anderson found evidence that some customers are strangely drawn to products that will never become popular. People who bought products that were known to fail, like Diet Crystal Pepsi, were also more likely to buy other products that were also doomed to fail, like Frito Lay Lemonade. Anderson calls these people "foretellers of failure," and he has a good reason to do so. He says that it seems like these customers are choosing things that might not be popular. We know that when they really like your product, it means that it only works for a small group of people. Anderson's research shows that there are some easy ways for market researchers to get rid of niche products before they fail.
More importantly, companies should not only ask customers if they would buy the product in question, but also what other products they buy often. For example, a customer who buys Swiffer products probably has pretty standard tastes and can be relied on. Anderson says that you may not want to launch this product because it's probably not going to have the mainstream appeal that keeps products going in the long run.