After working with start-ups for 16 years Keith Roberts of Zenman knows a little bit about failure.  But not in the way you might be thinking.  Keith has a different relationship with failure, and that is he sees failure as opportunity.   “Failure,” Keith says, “is an opportunity to incrementally improve. Trials and tribulations are part of any growth process.  It’s what we do with the failure – what we do with the lesson” that defines whether we go boldly forward or beat a hasty retreat.

Many of us fear failure.  We can’t help ourselves.  It’s human nature.  Who goes into a new endeavor hoping to fail?  The idea that we could fail leaves us feeling reluctant and underprepared.  Often these feelings are interpreted as a sign that it’s time to question our motives, do more planning, or bail out fast! 

In a recent book “Fail Fast, Fail Often:  How Losing Can Help you Win” by Ryan Babineaux we learn that most significant accomplishments arise out of plenty mistakes and failures.  It can be easy to think that successful enterprises are the result of extraordinary brilliance and come into being perfectly formed.  Howard Schultz’s creation of Starbucks is a great example of how success arises from many failures.

When Schultz first started Starbucks, he modeled his stores after Italian coffee shops, a relatively new idea for Americans.  Though Schultz’s idea was a good starting point, the Starbucks of today bear little resemblance to his first idea. As he would soon discover, many things were wrong with his idea.  Some of you may remember, in the first stores, the baristas wore bow ties, the menus were in Italian, and opera music played in the background. The coffee shops of today evolved through thousands of experiments, adjustments, and revisions along the way.

This example points out an important principle: successful people take action as quickly as possible, even though they may perform badly. They see failure as a sign of being in a space of growth and that is all the more reason to press ahead.  Instead of trying to avoid making mistakes and failing, they actively seek opportunities where they can face the limits of their skills and knowledge so that they can learn quickly.

 “Giving yourself permission to make a mess of things is particularly important if you do any sort of creative work. (We should note that all people are creative—which is to say that they live in the real world, form ideas, come up with solutions to problems, have dreams, and forge their own path; your own life is your ultimate creation.),” says Babineaux. 

Keith notes that businesses that are flexible to learning about their failures tend to have an edge on success.   You don’t always know exactly where you’re going with a new idea, but if you stay open-minded, accept the constructive input you receive during development, and ultimately adapt to what you learn from the consumers of your product/service, something beyond your own imagination will emerge.