Apparently, there is a perfect rate of failure – and it’s 12.5%. 1 in every 8 of your decisions, initiatives, projects should end in failure. I’m not sure how that exact figure was computed but it makes sense to me: if you never or very rarely fail, you may well develop a reputation as a safe pair of hands but you probably aren’t pushing yourself and your teams into new territory, you aren’t learning or, and as Mr Covey would put it, you won’t be expanding your’ circle of influence’ which is key to developing your career and preparing yourself for bigger and better things. And you almost certainly aren’t challenge your organisation to do bigger and better things. On the other hand, push things too far and fail too often and you may well start building reputation for being reckless, a loose cannon and people may lose confidence in your capability to make decisions and lead.
That ‘1 in 8’ figure is a challenge to the ‘fail fast, fail often’ or ‘move fast and break things’ mantras. There may well be organisations that truly celebrate high levels of failure, it’s just that I haven’t yet come across one that could afford for its executives to be learning at the expense of the bottom line.
The question you should be asking yourself is, ‘am I pushing hard enough?’ or ‘am I pushing too hard?’ You should ask the same of your teams and be prepared to accept and defend their failures, even celebrate them. As long as you are all learning from the things you get wrong, then you and your teams are likely to be developing personally and professionally and moving your business forwards. You shouldn’t fear failure, but you should fear too much or too little.
