Failure Phobia
These inspiring words of determination are all too often misconstrued by risk-averse leaders who hold the belief that any form of failure is unacceptable. If you remember the rest of the film, you know that numerous trial-and-error experiments led to a successful solution to the spacecraft power crisis. Most of them failed to provide enough power reduction to save the crew. With each frustrating failure, the team gained insight that led to successful solutions.
In reality, when failure is not an option, the surest route to success is through failure and the resulting innovation that only evolves when we…
Try > Fail > Learn > Adapt > Innovate
And as the instructions on shampoo bottles used to say about lathering and rinsing: “Repeat as necessary“.
Culture Check
If we can agree that innovation is critical to success. And acknowledge that failures are a critical component for success, allow me to ask:
How does your organization reward failures?
Or do you harbor a risk-averse culture that discourages venturesome, entrepreneurial activities? When was the last time you acknowledged a staff or team member for their willingness to try and fail? What did everyone gain?
Too Much of a Bad Thing?
As leaders, we need to develop a tolerance for those who try and fail. We also need to manage our scarce resources. An overabundance of failures that fail to generate results isn’t the answer either. So in the pursuit of balance, there’s another lesson in failure from the Apollo 13 story. It’s the need to fail fast. Gene Kranz’s team of engineers had a tiny window of time for experimentation, and it was clearly communicated.
Leadership Challenges
Here are some suggestions for ways for you to fail responsibly:
- Find innovative ways to eliminate the fear of failure that results in creating a risk averse culture
- Drive innovation by seeking new ways to harvest knowledge that results from ill-fated trials
- Find new ways to promote efficient failures. Like the NASA engineers in the movie, develop an awareness of the need to fail fast. Their fast failures led to their ultimate success.
How do you do these? I recommend that you try new approaches that fit your situation. Be prepared to fail, learn, and adapt. Then innovate like your mission depends on it. And remember that fear of failure is not an option.
Innovation Inspiration
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas A. Edison
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The Film’s Failure Footnote:
While actor Ed Harris delivered the passionate, now-famous line “Failure is not an option“, Gene Kranz did not. It’s a screenwriter’s creation. That didn’t stop Mr. Kranz from borrowing it for the title of his autobiography. And why not? His leadership and determined attitude led to an epic, film-worthy, real-life success story.
