Failure is Not an Option

On April 12, 1981, my dad ran into our room extra early and excitedly woke us up—today was the day! We quickly dressed for school and ran to the den to plop ourselves in front of the TV to watch history unfold: the inaugural launch of NASA’s new Space Shuttle program.?

Watching Columbia lift off into space was mesmerizing, and I still remember all the news commentators talking about how nothing like this had ever been done before and that no one knew what to expect.

A true space junkie, I’ve always been enamored by space—its history, present, and future—as well as movies like Apollo 13. For most people, the famous phrase from the movie is “Houston, we have a problem” but for me, it’s the line from NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz: “Failure is not an option.” (Gene also authored a fantastic book titled with that phrase about his NASA career).?

You see, sending a rocket into space is an incredibly complicated task, and there’s no room for failure.

Outside the aerospace industry, there are plenty of other businesses where failure isn’t an option. At one end of the spectrum you have airline pilots or surgeons—fail and people die. At the other end, you have service businesses like funeral directors or even caterers—failure to deliver when others are counting on you isn’t really an option either.?It can't be good for business.

Yet, at the same time, we are repeatedly encouraged to embrace failure. How many books have you read that talk about the importance of failure? How many viral LinkedIn posts have you seen celebrating failure?

So which one is it? Is failure an option or is it not? And what about people or businesses who don’t have the luxury to fail?

Here’s the thing about rockets: they fail PLENTY. What’s different is how engineers approach the concept of failure. They know you can’t prevent failure, so when failure isn’t an option, you learn to plan accordingly for it.?

Here are two valuable lessons we can learn:

First, plan for failure. Create and put backup systems in place so that, as Ozan Varol explains, you can fail without failing.

In UX design, we use a concept called “fail gracefully” to create an experience when a failure occurs to lead a user down an alternative path rather than just display a cryptic error dialog.?It's a failure that's anticipated and planned for.

Planning for failure ensures you can find a way forward even when things go wrong.

Second, choose WHEN to fail. If it’s going to happen, do it on your terms. And most importantly, do it to learn how to reduce the likelihood of failure in the future. Turn failing into learning.

This is why astronauts and airline pilots and doctors do so much training, and they do so for all kinds of scenarios that may go wrong. So they can learn how to react when things do go awry.?

So yes, we should embrace failure. But not for the purpose of failing—rather for the purpose of learning to succeed when failure isn’t an option.?

Apply these two lessons to your business or career and you're guaranteed to succeed, even when you fail.

Two more quick things to share on this topic:

1. I’ve been following Michelle “MACE” Curran on LinkedIn lately. She's an ex-Thunderbirds pilot and I find her daily posts are fun and help drive these concepts of failure and learning. Follow her! She also recently started up her own newsletter.
2. I stumbled upon this wonderful and funny video created by a guy who documented “All my rockets that didn’t work”.

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Books referenced in this edition:

• Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life by Ozan Varol

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Read. Learn. Share. is Curated Curiosity?. I regularly share quotes with brief commentary on LinkedIn from things I read, watch, and learn. This series takes us on a journey that goes deeper on top-of-mind topics and themes.