How to Embrace and Profit from Failure - An Asian Perspective

Failure, when harnessed in a strategic way, will set your team on the path to greatness. Asian organisations are poor at embracing failure as a strategic approach and it is time to change. Here's how you can harness it for success.

Messi, welcome to the world's most distinguished club: The Club of Failures. Your fellow alumni include Steve Jobs, Jurgen Klinsmann and Deng Xiaoping. Every single one of them was written off and condemned; critics were sure that their moment of glory was over. But they refused to admit defeat and went on to change the world. Jobs transformed the way we use technology, Klinsmann paved the way for Germany's latest victory at the World Cup and Deng set his nation on the path to greatness. So the ball is in your court because you can still decide how this story ends.

Many Asian institutions prefer to hear the good stuff

Like the situation confronting Messi, we in Asia need to learn how to handle failure and criticism better. A radio station in Singapore once ran a TV Ad campaign that aptly portrayed how we prefer to deal with it. One scene depicts a boy playing tennis in the worst possible way, while dad watches approvingly. As the coach tells him that his son doesn’t have what it takes, the father prefers to hear only the good stuff and comes away with the delusion that his son will be the next Andre Agassi.

Some Asian countries already deem their economies a success, even though corruption is still rampant and many of their companies remain largely contractors and middlemen in the value chain. And when failure happens, many Asian institutions prefer to sidestep the issue by saying that they have done their best; then lay low, hoping that the criticism will simply go away.

The other worrying trend in Asia is: as the region thrives, our openness towards criticism and patience for failures seems to be in even shorter supply. While some Asian companies have begun to dominate technology and innovation, many more are quite satisfied with the status quo. They are happy to just make the money, while letting western companies take care of questioning and designing the future. This is an alarming trend because we should be at a stage where ambition, risk taking and thirst for knowledge is rising not diminishing. Without openness to criticism and the courage to embrace failures, we cannot hope to shape the future.

In a bizarre twist in China’s history, Ming Emperor Yung-lo, after sending the eunuch Cheng Ho to explore the world, decided to shut down the navy. Cheng Ho had brought back impressive spoils and helped the imperial court learn more about the world beyond China’s borders. Unfortunately, court officials saw those presentations as confirmation that the Chinese were far more superior and had nothing to learn from this strange new world. They deemed the navy too expensive a hobby and went a step further to destroy all evidence and capability of building a blue-water fleet. Future generations of Chinese would lament this decision, because the world would have been a very different place had the navy remained intact.

To prevent the setback in Asia's growth, we need to embrace failure and encourage people to have the courage to make a comeback after failing. Asian leaders such as Deng Xiaoping have shown that this is possible. After all, it is the ability and the commitment to keep trying against the odds which makes innovation possible.

How can we profit from failures? Here are some ideas for you to consider:

1. Let Failure Inspire You

When embarking on a new venture, don’t be too caught up by the grandeur of success. Think of the different ways an idea can fail. As Andy Grove said, “Only the paranoid will survive.”

In our firm we encourage consultants to consider the ways a project can go wrong and to study the different scenarios before developing a solution. The team will then learn how to be more creative as they are forced to think within constraints. To get the most out of such sessions, you need to moderate lest people go to the extremes and become too negative, paralysing their ability to think of solutions.

During workshops, we invite participants to share one hope and one concern about an idea prior to development. People usually share three types of issues: first, issues that can be solved with the right processes and persons; second, issues beyond the organisation’s control such as the industry changes or politics; and third, the outcomes that they desire. People who raise issues that are within the organisation’s control tend to be more action-oriented and are willing to work to solve the problem. This encourages a more solution-driven discussion versus a doom-and-gloom approach.

2. Identify The Type of Failures

Be careful not to jump to conclusions when something has failed without a meaningful review. The review should consider the journey thus far, from plan to process. Look out for these three types of failures:

Failure of execution occurs because of human or process-related mistakes. A particular action may not have been done well, so the result was unsatisfactory. You can expect to see more immediate results after you have changed the processes or persons involved.

Failure of environment occurs when the business environment is not sufficiently developed to support the venture. The venture may be making money, but securing financing is difficult. You will need to adjust the financing aspect to buy time for the venture.

Failure of concept occurs when no one is willing to pay for the product after it is out in the market. You may be putting in a lot of work and doing all the right things, but it is just not working out. You will have to change the business model and concept.

3. A Culture That Embraces Failure

Failures can be catalysts for success. Do you know when people make mistakes in your organisation? And when you do, how do you react to them? You want an organisation where people are open about their failures so that you can address them before they become insurmoutable problems.

Being honest about one’s mistakes does not come naturally in the Asian culture, so management must be supportive when people try to take personal responsibility and attempt to make amends. For subordinates to share their mistakes in front of others is common at our firm. After such a sharing, we immediately switch from identifying what has failed towards identifying a solution. We don’t dwell on the mistakes or play the blame game. As this happened frequently, trust then built up between management and staff, and people became less defensive, becoming more open to solving problems. This culture took some years to develop, but it made us stronger and more adaptable to a fast-changing world allowing us to profit from past failures.

Have more ideas on how to profit from failures? Share your thoughts here.

Photo: AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

About Consulus

Since 2004, we have redesigned countless businesses and organisations to embrace innovation in over 18 cities in the world. Read about our PurposeCore programme if your organisation is looking for change so as to shape the world. In 2014, we launched an enterprise sharing app called CastleUp to strength sharing of ideas to enhance team work. To know more about PurposeCore or CastleUp, Contact us

About Lawrence

He is the Co-founder and CEO of Consulus, an Asian innovation consultancy with business management and multi-disciplinary design capabilities. He is a featured Speaker at global events such as World Marketing Summit and World Brand Congress. He is the Immediate Past President of Design Business Chamber Singapore. His thoughts on Asian innovation and creativity appear frequently in regional media such as Marketing Magazine, andVTC10. In his personal capacity, he is a member of Religions for Peace and the Focolare, working for peace through dialogue among people of other faiths.