Failure and Innovation

Many up and coming entrepreneurs feel that they cannot start a business without a great idea. They believe it will be impossible to succeed without a completely new concept, as the market will already be cornered by established businesses. Loosing sight of the fact that in every decade, generation or century, fundamental changes in the nature of consumption create new demand patterns that existing enterprises can’t meet. Only by venturing into uncharted territory can they achieve their dreams. This is the fallacy of the great idea and exactly what has plagued many in failing to chart this great optional path to success.
However “just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress”  Ted Levitt.

Research has shown that there is a sharp contrast in the attitudes to business failure in the US and Europe and this is often cited as one of the reasons for the more entrepreneurial, innovation lead culture across the oceans.

Founder of Craiglist - Craig Newmark was dismayed by the attitude to failure he found when he visited the UK in 2009.  “In Silicon Valley, failure is just a normal phase of one’s career” he commented on his blog. Contrast this with Europe where 57% of people would not invest money with someone who has failed in the past and 47% would be less inclined to buy goods from someone who had a blot on their business career.

These differences in attitude have a huge impact on the number of startups. At any one time around 10% of the US population are engaged in the process of setting up a business whereas the figure is around 4% in the UK and only 2% in France.

Innovation and entrepreneurship by their very nature require experimenting with new ideas, many of which may not see the light of success or even the hope of getting it off the ground.

Everyone fears failure, but innovation depends on it. Woody Allen - an American Actor, Author, Screenwriter and Film Director, once said “If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”

A fear of failure can stifle the creative process in two ways. 

Firstly, the stigmatisation of failure makes people reluctant to try new things. This can be a big problem in both new and established business as people will play safe and stick to the status quo causing stagnation.

Secondly, people who fear failure will persevere at a failing project too long. In his book (The Dip), marketing guru Seth Godin argues that successful people fail early and fail often. The secret is to learn from the experience and ensure that the next project does not make the same mistakes. Alongside the learning experience that failure can bring, it also pushes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to do new things.

After getting fired or made redundant, you may not know what you will do next, but one thing is for certain, things will be different and you will have to improvise. The experience can either be a crushing blow or an exciting opportunity.

In 2008 J K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, gave a speech to Harvard Graduates entitled ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure’. Before becoming a world famous novelist, Rowling suffered a series of setbacks. Looking back now, she feels that her failures allowed her to strip away the inessential and concentrate on the one thing she was good at, writing.

In her speech she said:

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way… …The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.

I believe that such is the story behind the scenes of many of the successful people we read about daily and pay to see. The problem of some people is that they haven’t failed enough in their various careers and consequently are stuck in dreary but well paid positions. A few failures along the way might have freed those people from the fear of the unknown and given them the permission they needed to think big. Globalization and technological advancement has handed to this generation great momentum to the speed of innovation in the last couple of decades. As Bill Gates rightly said “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time”. 

My final conclusion for today is that for any nation, group or individual ‘Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity’ - Michael Porter. 

Life will hand over a blank check if you dare to try and try again. You stand to lose if all you do is  keep peeping out of the window of life crying out  ......... , “There’s a lion out there! If I go outside, I might be killed!”....... . That’s a wise piece from the book of Proverbs.

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