SUCCEED BY FAILING (Ralph Keyes)
Cookies op HigherLevel.nl
We hebben cookies geplaatst op je toestel om deze website voor jou beter te kunnen maken. Je kunt de cookie instellingen aanpassen, anders gaan we er van uit dat het goed is om verder te gaan.
Gast zrski
Gast zrski
One would think that the most successful people in business were determined to succeed and not to fail. Not necessarily. In some ways it’s just the opposite: those who focus too hard on succeeding don’t do as well as those who can tolerate failure.
In a rapidly changing economy you are likely to confront as much failure as success. You will then, of course, confront a natural fear of failure. This is perfectly normal, and not even a bad thing necessarily. Fear can motivate, and make one concentrate harder. It can even be stimulating.
Those who found businesses seem to thrive on the anxiety they confront and the excitement it creates. Entrepreneurs are renowned for their excitement-craving temperaments. If anything, they prefer the dark clouds and thunderclaps of impending catastrophe to clear days of smoothly humming businesses. Research on entrepreneurial attitudes suggests that orderly settings cause these risk takers more pain than chaotic ones. "We have days when it's kind of smooth," the owner of a food manufacturing business told Inc.magazine, "but those are not my greatest days" The founder of a restaurant chain concurred. "My eyes light up when I hear of a crisis," he said.
Ask any founder of a thriving business how things are going and you'll get an aggravated recounting of payrolls to be met, debt to be serviced, insurance to be bought, and the need to expand. Running the business is a million headaches. But ask that person what it was like to start an enterprise and watch his or her face light up. Getting a business off the ground is a heroic experience: one thrilling story after another of bill collectors pounding on the door, creditors whistling through the keyholes, and eating bologna sandwiches on the floor by candlelight because the furniture was repossessed and electricity turned off. Color comes to entrepreneurs’ faces as they recount such stories, and excitement rings in their voice.
Today’s entrepreneurs would have been yesterday’s explorers, scouts, and warriors. The evolution of society has depended on their adventurous spirit. The best business-founders see their failures as footsteps on the path toward success. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs consider failures “rites of passage,” “learning experiences,” and “steps on the road to success.” It's a truism in Silicon Valley that a high tolerance for failure underlies this sector’s dynamism. There you are told repeatedly, “Failure is tolerated here.”
A reluctance to try something new, they say, is worse than trying something new that fails. Among these business creators there’s almost a cult of failure, a cocky pride in their ability to take a hit and come back swinging. Microsoft’s Bill Gates was recently depicted in Fortune magazine as a risk-taker whose success has grown from the realization that “you have to try everything, because the real secret of innovation is to fail fast."
There are sound management reasons for being more accepting of failure and less impressed by success. That is not an altogether modern insight. The attitudes of today's entrepreneurs differ little from those of yesterday's inventor-moguls: Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Henry Ford. Ford called failure “the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.” He spoke from experience. Before the Ford Motor Company took, two previous ventures of his had crashed and burned. Like contemporary innovators, earlier pathbreakers saw much to be said for business setbacks. According to IBM’s Thomas Watson, Sr., "The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate."
A study of 40 successful entrepreneurs found that most had run one or more businesses into the ground. Yet the vast majority said if their current venture collapsed, they would start another. Don't they ever learn, the more prudent among us wonder. Well, no. That's why entrepreneurs keep plugging. Getting knocked down. Trying again. On the floor. Back on their feet. Like wirewalkers, venture founders know that whoever gets on the wire may fall off. They just don't consider this sufficient reason to stay on the ground.
Link naar reactie
Aanbevolen berichten
4 antwoorden op deze vraag