How do you perceive failure?

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising every time we fail"

The nation shared a collective sigh (and tear) last night having witnessed England fail in their bid to reach their first world cup final in 52 years. I'm left asking myself; what is failure? How do we take positives from it? Can we look at failure as something we all have to do before we succeed?

Hospitality leaves little room for failure. If a restaurant fails to deliver excellent customer service, we will go to the next restaurant that can deliver. Our industry is very reactive. You are always remembered for the failures - after all - we are paid to do things right, first time of asking. Is the industry therefore able to use failure as a learning curve or is it one strike and your out? In the current climate with so much competition, I think the one strike rule is all sadly all that matters.

Endurance, courage, resilience are all characteristics we can gain through failing and this can be nurtured in the work place where staff are not living in fear of failing. Five or six doubles is tiring and mistakes will happen. Pippa Grange is the England team psychologist:

“I’d like to turn this unhealthy preoccupation with success on its head and put it on the record that I think failure is really useful. For without failure we cannot progress longer, higher or faster. It’s a funny paradox – our successes are achieved through trying, and trying most often ends in failure. Every day in our general lives....we will win some and lose some; it’s just part of the way life should be. It could be missing out on a promotion, being pipped at the line in a running race or bombing out in an exam – it doesn’t matter – the important lesson is to learn from our failures, reassess, rethink, move forward (sometimes in a different direction) and keep those dreams and goals alive.”

So how do you perceive failure - is it a precursor to success or is it something to avoid?