Four Ways to Deal with Failure

There are many idioms and sayings about success and failure, mostly focusing on the desired outcome. 

Try and try till you succeed.

Failure is a stepping stone to success. 

Success and Failure are two sides of a coin – one doesn’t exist without the other. 

Failures are usually seen as bumps on the way, to be quickly moved on and forgotten. My recommendation is to pause a bit and take stock when one fails. When I look back at my career, I see a number of points where I felt I failed. And while moving ahead and succeeding in ways that mattered to me have been very satisfying, it has also been helpful for me to reflect on how failure should be handled. 

Failure provides a checkpoint to introspect, improve and improvise. To me, there are 3 ways of dealing with failure and 1 critical way to get ahead of failure that can shape one’s future. 

Know that failure is not always your fault. 

Early on in my career, I had the unfortunate experience of a job offer at PSU being withdrawn from me and given to a candidate who had come through recommendation. While this had a serious impact on me at the time, one of the first things I understood was that the failure had not been my fault. I could look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that I was meant for better things. I also learnt the value of informal and formal networks. 

But , a passive learning experience may not always be the case. Sometimes, we are actively responsible for the failure. Missed deadlines for bid submission or poorly reviewed deliverables failing during UAT (or worse, after launch) are some examples. While it is tempting to shift blame elsewhere, accepting the failure means that there is willingness to improve. 

Don’t repeat the same mistakes. 

Analyzing the failure is important to prevent recurrence – While mistakes can be tolerated or even expected from a beginner in a career, it is not acceptable for the same mistakes to be repeated. The margin of error decreases exponentially as one grows in their career, A mistake that would be ignored or laughed off as a junior could be career ending at a senior level. At the beginning of my career in the private sector, one of my peers forgot to include a critical document in a presentation. It made him look bad, it made the entire team look bad in front of a customer. After the meeting, our manager took him aside and asked him about the mistake. As my colleague began to apologize, the manager said that he knew whose fault it was. But he was more  interested to know why it had happened and what would be done to prevent a recurrence. The manager’s questions were the right ones and they ensured that some gaps in the review process got identified and fixed. The problem never recurred, and the errant employee turned into a loyal and committed professional. 

Try to fail forward than backward

 This can seem counterintuitive but there can be good and bad failures. A good failure will have a positive impact on your future. Whereas a bad failure is just that, it can temporarily make you struggle or worse have a catastrophic impact on your career. 

But, how can this be achieved? We don’t plan our failures, so how does one fail forward. 

Earlier, I mentioned acceptance and analysis of failures. In my previous role, I worked with a colleague who I knew was extremely capable as I was a peer interviewer when he was hired. He came with impeccable credentials and proven industry experience. Yet, he seemed extremely frustrated at work and struggled to perform from the outset. In a critical assignment, his team failed and he was held accountable. He accepted responsibility and took some time off. When he returned, we briefly spoke and he told me that he had used the break to do some soul searching and had concluded that he wanted to return to his native place and focus on farming and crop management. I heard the enthusiasm in his voice and could sense that he was doing the right thing. This was from a few years ago. I see him on LinkedIn and have noticed that he is doing well and he has branched into farming and agriculture related businesses while staying in his native place. This is an example of failing forward and while it is an extreme case, it is possible that a failure or sustained lack of enthusiasm in coding makes you realize your true calling is in UI design instead. Or an early failure in engineering makes you realize you should have focused on arts instead. Fail forward and the failure can be a true foundation to future success.

Watch out for early signs of failure

This is about avoiding critical failures as much as possible. Anyone who works in the industrial sector is aware of wear and tear and the importance of predictive maintenance. There is so much content on this. But, what about wear and tear in other aspects of work? It could be work stress leading to a missed deadline, bad project planning leading to limited testing and so on. The higher one goes in their career, they owe it to themselves to learn to watch out for small things that could signal bigger problems. The interesting aspect of this is such expertise comes from previous failure and failure comes from lack of such expertise. But, a good leader should make it a point to keep their finger on the pulse of their portfolios – whether you are a CEO or a product manager or a creative head, make it a point to define your KPIs such that they give you the macro picture of where you need to be – like a progress indicator in a map. But remember to also have an indicator of where things could go wrong – like the E indicator in your fuel gauge. 

Using the above methods can allow you to deal with failure in a professional manner. It will help you to not only move forward but also to engage meaningfully with your colleagues at work or at school following the failure. 

Let me sign off with one common saying about failure – one learns more from failures than success. Practice these tips and you will be on the path to attaining more success than you want and less failures than you need.