Learning to Achieve Success through Failure

Today’s post is by Lori Ann LaRocco, author of Opportunity Knocking: Lessons from Business Leaders, (CLICK HERE to get your copy) and producer on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Every leader, no matter what industry they operate in, has had a moment when they either rise to the occasion or fail. Wall Street is littered with the carcasses of corporate casualties, but what sets the spectacular success stories apart from the failures is the ability of leaders from both successful and failed companies to learn from their mistakes. In order to not repeat mistakes, you need to reflect on, analyze, and accept what went wrong regarding execution. Failure can be an important piece on the journey to success. The lessons you learn after each setback will help fortify your knowledge and approach future problems confidently by learning what you should — and shouldn’t — do.

Reflection

Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, would say that he is an example of such a journey. During his long career, Case has tasted both the sweetness of success and the bitterness of failure. While many people are familiar with the spectacular failure of the AOL-Time Warner merger, Case faced challenges even before that ill-fated corporate marriage. Years before AOL, Case left his safe and dependable job with a Fortune 500 company for Control Video, an up-and-coming technical disruptor.

But his expectations of greatness quickly turned into a nightmare. At his first board meeting with Control Video, he found out the company was collapsing. Instead of declaring failure, Case and some of his colleagues chose to view the closing of Control Video as a learning opportunity.

“In retrospect, the company made a lot of mistakes,” Case said. “But out of those mistakes, and that failure, I learned a great deal about what to do, and what not to do. Those lessons helped teach me how to start a company, how to grow a team, how to build partnerships, and much more. I believed so passionately in the promise of a new interactive medium that I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. So I said, ‘Well, let’s figure out another way to come at this.’ I think it’s safe to say that without the failure of GameLine, there would have never been the success of America Online.”

Analyzing

Fear of a misstep is not part of the journey on the road to success. You have to analyze the choices and make a calculated risk. In the oil industry, taking calculated risks is a must, or you will not succeed at all. For example, Harold Hamm, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Continental Resources, had 17 dry wells in a row at one point. The failures didn’t deter him from his goal.

“I never gave up,” he said. “Sometimes things don’t go your way, but they can be the life-shapers that prepare you to take on the next challenge…. Hardship sometimes is just as necessary as accomplishments. If it is too easy, you don’t learn the skills you need in order not to give up and achieve success.” Hamm has often said it’s the extreme hardships that you endure that prepare you for what’s next.

Acceptance

The last part of processing failure is accepting the outcome. You need to learn from the decisions you have made and move on because, in the end, you can’t turn back time to undo it. You have to move forward.

Wilbur Ross’s mistake was not a business misstep but instead a personal one: “My biggest mistake was [that] I should have started out on my own sooner,” he said. Ross worked for 24 years at the New York office of Rothschild, Inc., running the company’s bankruptcy-restructuring advisory practice. In the late 1990s, Ross started a $200 million fund at Rothschild to invest in distressed assets. But as the US bubble began to burst, Ross saw opportunity. He wanted to invest more and advise less. So at the age of 62, Ross started WL Ross & Co. on April Fools’ Day in 2000.

Looking back, Ross said his mistake was being too comfortable with his old job. He felt “safe and secure.” The risks of not doing something and striking out on his own outweighed the risks of staying put. Needless to say, he is happy he eventually made the leap.

It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur like these three men or if you are working your way up the corporate ladder—success can be born out of failure. Leaders face adversity head on—they know what they’re up against and acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses. Learning from your mistakes is a necessary ingredient to achieving your success. The journey will be full of highs and lows. You just need to make sure you have the tools to successfully navigate around the valleys and across the mountains.

– Lori Ann LaRocco is the author of Opportunity Knocking: Lessons from Business Leaders (CLICK HERE to get your copy), and producer on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

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