Learning from Failure is simpler than Benchmarking
George ILIEV, MBA (伊乔)
Strategic Projects & Innovation Director (战略项目与创新总监); Accreditation & China Director (认证与中国总监) at the Association of MBAs (AMBA & BGA)
Biz School Best Practice: Key Takeaways, PART 4 (from RepurposeEducation.blogspot.com)
1. BENCHMARKING
Benchmarking sounds simple: just look at what someone else has done right and copy it. Yet complexity gets in the way of learning from best practice.
2. LEARNING FROM FAILURE
The opposite of benchmarking is "learning from failure". Military schools teach a lot more failure cases, while business schools teach mostly success cases. This is because military strategists believe you learn the right lessons from failure but the wrong lessons from success: There are usually just one or several factors contributing to failure and these can be identified; while there is often an infinite number of factors contributing to success.
3. FAILURE IS HIDDEN
Learning from failure is hard as failure is often hidden from view: like a reef that sinks ships. Failed people and companies simply do not want to shout to the world that they have failed and try to bury all negative news.
4. SUCCESS IS IN YOUR FACE
Success is difficult to untangle but it also gets disproportionately extensive coverage in the media - usually in a simplistic way (e.g. Donald Trump built a real estate empire with his entrepreneurial spirit).
5. FAILING TO LEARN
The double opposite of benchmarking is "NOT learning from failure" - be it yours or others'. Otto von Bismarck described this in the 1800s:
"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others."
Hashtags: #RepurposeEducation #Failure #Success #Benchmarking #LearningFromFailure #FailingToLearn #LearnFromFailure #FailToLearn
COO | AI & Product Executive | Scaling FinTech & SaaS Platforms | MBA
4 年George ILIEV, MBA (伊乔) thanks for writing and sharing! Although, I have an opinion on how much this depends on the circumstances and area. Indeed, you've made some good points: "just one or several factors contributing to failure". Indeed, this is a good insight - the root causes are somewhat clearer and easier to identify. Sometimes, the costs of failures are too high, which is why aeroplane pilots train on simulators for thousands of hours... However, why not a hybrid approach: you can always benchmark your key competencies against others'. Then, consider their failures (as the end of the article suggests), and then develop your strategy.