Columbia Business School Faculty Director and Associate Professor of Management Rita McGrath recently discussed the provincial ways failure can work to an organization’s advantage.
“Stop worrying about the rate of failure,” McGrath advises, noting that our own fears often prevent us from moving forward. She urges organizations to “fail fast, and move on” in four easy principles:
- Determine what success will look like. Many companies don’t have a clear sense of what their ultimate destination looks like, yet they spend a great deal of time and energy on the wrong road, trying to figure out how to get there. In order to design and follow an effective route, organizations need to have a clear definition for what it means for them to truly arrive.
- Turn assumptions into opportunities for knowledge and learning, rather than trying to hold on to convention. McGrath says many organizations waste precious resources trying to work within obsolete or dysfunctional structures. In the meantime, competitors who are more open to new or unknown methods stand a better chance of courting innovation and surpassing organizations who are stuck in their ways.
- Limit the amount of uncertainty you’re dealing with at any one time. When you’re too close to the canvas, you can’t properly survey the landscape. Inspirational platitudes aside, McGrath says, “If there are too many variables, you’re not going make any sense out of what you’re seeing.”
- Collect data from the failure and share learnings. McGrath advises organizations to use “failure as a stepping stone to success and an opportunity to learn from error, grow in knowledge, and overcome challenges.”