EMBRACING FAILURE AS A STRATEGIC MODEL

I have had actually written this blog piece several years ago, in response to an email exchange with award-winning innovator and also author of  Innovate or Die: A Personal Perspective on the Art of Innovation, by Dr Jack V Matson.

It was in connection with the concept of  'Intelligent Fast Failure', or IFF, which he had orginally conceived in the early nineties, as part of the engineering curriculum design for The Penn State University (The Leonard Center for Innovation & Enhancement of Engineering Education.

He had sought my personal views, by posing the following questions:

- what is your experience with the IFF concept?

- has it been difficult for others to grasp?

- do you know of people who have used it successfully? if so, how? in what ways?

I have had  come to realise, with a little bit of wisdom on hindsight, that my broad understanding of the IFF concept came from few major strands, prior to reading his wonderful book, 'The Art of innovation: Using Intelligent Fast Failure', which was the precursor to Innovate or Die.

#1) Over the years, reading the life stories of inventive minds like Thomas Edison, Alexander Grapham Bell, The Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Paul MacCready, James Dyson, as well as entrepreneurial minds like Richard Branson, Sim Wong Hoo (Creative Technology), Ronald Sim (OSIM), etc., especially understanding how they had dealt with various failures in their own unique ways;

#2) from the 'Money & You' seminar in Adelaide, Australia, during the early nineties, from where I had learned of the "axiom": 

"The greatest failure in life is the failure to participate in your own life."

#3) reading about the global iconoclast and futurist R Buckminster Fuller and his great work, especially when he had chosen to dedicate halff of a century of his remaining life to working for global humanity, as documented in his wonderful book, 'Critical Path' as well as manifested in many of his patented artefacts e.g. geodesic dome, Dymaxion map, just to name a few. 

It was actually his  personal experiment as 'Guinea Pig B' (B for Bucky as he was affectionately known to most people); one of his "axioms" stood out, among many others:

"There are no failed experiments; only unexpected outcomes".

[Note: Bucky had failed miserably in several business ventures. In fact, he had also failed to honour his last personal commitment to his daughter, who later died in his arms, as he had spent too much time boozing.]

#4) eventually reading Dr Matson's 'The Art of Innovation', from which I had picked up two superb insights:

i) move as quickly as possible from new ideas to new knowledge, by making small & manageable mistakes (read: "learning experiences");

ii) keeping multiple experiments going on simultaneously that require minimal investment with the idea that one of these might bloom first;

I also took the opportunity to point out to Dr Matson that, while most "successful" people had approached "learning from failures" as launch pads for renewed actions after the "failures" had happened, he had established "embracing failures" as a strategic mental model to allow people to fail forward and fast in an intelligent and fearless manner.

That's to say, his IFF concept is proactive and anticipatory. That's the distinction I see.

On that note, and with all the understanding that I had gained from the foregoing exposures, I had started my small post-corporate-world ventures during the early nineties, as follows in one go:

- promoting seminars from overseas;
- writing a subscription newsletter;
- setting up a small book store;
- creating a strategy consulting business;

Sadly, my first two ventures ran only for about two years, and ceased immediately after that, but the knowledge and experience gained allowed me to try out the design and development of my own seminars and workshops, which went off well, following a slow start.

Then, the foregoing change, plus the remaining two ventures, became my "bread & butter" lines.

Frankly, as I had told Dr Matson in my response that, I don't think it would be difficult for people to grasp the concept of using "failures as learning experiences", or "bouncing back from failures", so to speak, but whether they could understand the distinction from his orginal IFF concept would be something else.

As a nation, at least from my personal perspective, I reckon Singapore had been a great example of the "embracing failures to move forward" philosophy, especially when Singapore was kicked out of the then Malaysian confederation in mid-1965, and also when the British colonial forces pulled out completely in the early 70s or so.

The complete historical events had already been documented in Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965 to 2000.

As for the knowledge of individuals from the "failures as stepping stones to success" perspective, I told Dr Matson that the published stories of:

- the Malaysian businessman Billi Lim in his book, Dare to Fail;

- the late Malaysian entrepreneur Lim Goh Tong, of the Genting Group, in his autobiography, My Story; and

- the chairman of global technology outfit Creative Technology, Sim Wong Hoo, in his semi-autobiography, Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium;

would be worth pursuing.

Dr Matson was delighted with my response. He wrote back:

"Thank you so much for your insightful response. You placed IFF in exactly the correct context. 

Many others have commented on failure and its meaning in retrospect.

 As you point out, my spin is a proactive embracing approach to failure as the price of knowledge aquisition."

In reality, as I thought about it further, 'Intelligent Fast Failure' is in fact a rapid learning methodology.

Unlike our traditional school system, where we learn the lesson first, & then take the test . . . with IFF, as applied in the real world, one takes the test first, in order to get the lesson.

In layman terms, this is often known as the "university of hard knocks".

As a strategic model for a venture, irrespective of whether it is business or professional or even personal, it nonetheless takes personal courage in dealing with the perceived fear of failure, a strong conviction in self-efficacy, and most importantly, the personal willingness to play, explore and experiment in its execution.

Drawing from my own personal experience, I reckon another defining factor is the focus on primary objectives set out at the beginning of the venture, with the added operational flexibility in the final approach to reaching those objectives amidst unexpected changing circumstances.