One of the key lessons taught to business owners or entrepreneurs in business school or even by industry experts is that if anything is guaranteed- its failure. They say around 100% of the time, the very first entrepreneurial initiative fails. If not, they encounter major difficulties in the long-run and the idea loses sustainability. Entrepreneurs are thankfully made aware of the realities of the market in the 21st century. This is perhaps the very reason why most entrepreneurs are so committed to their vision that the acceptance of the idea that there are bound to be failures in the beginning in particular, is easy.
The acceptance of failure sounds easy but the reality is far from it. Entrepreneurs think and dream about their ideas for a considerable period of time before execution and in the midst of all the optimism when things turn sour or go south, it is not a good feeling. Many entrepreneurs globally, regardless of what their business idea was, tend to lose hope, fall into depression and even give up on their ideas. It is only in the long-term that entrepreneurs realize that a part of that initial failure can be attributed to their own mistakes and miscalculations and the rest can be attributed to a number of internal and external factors. With time it also becomes easier to understand how they could have dealt with certain obstacles or ‘failures’ in a better or more efficient way.
Statistically speaking, if you started your first business, you’ve already failed. However, despite it being a cliché, failure is nothing short of an opportunity. When we start perceiving failure as simply that, we tend to get caught up in a spiralling mindset of what went wrong, how things could have turned out differently ultimately all leading to disappointment. On the other hand, when we start to think of failure as an opportunity, that is where real success begins. Every failure is a case study for future endeavours.
In addition to that, the acceptance of failure also leads to good leadership practices. Once the acceptance of failure begins, executives can be better leaders by taking responsibility. An entrepreneur is responsible for every single aspect of the business and must take responsibility for every failure. However, the leadership must not simply be confined to responsibility, it must also involve accountability. Accountability involves using responsibility as a stepping stone and then being answerable and willing to accept the outcomes of the failure.
Failures in a business are guaranteed, what entrepreneurs need to learn is that it’s nothing personal. The best approach at handling failures is learning the lessons, taking responsibility and moving on. With each passing failure, businesses become wiser and more resilient. Failure is not the end, it is a roadblock. While accepting success is easier, accepting failures is more fruitful since it minimizes the risk of doing what caused the failure in the long-run. A common saying goes ‘Try again, fail again. Fail better’, and that perhaps, is the only way that entrepreneurs can truly learn and avoid failure in the future.
