The Impact of Failure
When things go wrong it creates a unique opportunity to learn what works and what doesn't
May 4, 2022
Beloved icon Yoda’s sage advice, ‘‘Do or do not, there is no try” tells us everything we need to know about our success-obsessed culture, where failure is punished worse than no attempt at all.
As early as grade school many of us were taught that failing is something to be ashamed of, something to hide. This messaging does a disservice to us as individuals and the community at large. When people are too scared to fail they are too scared to take risks, to take the ‘road less traveled’. Human advancement demands experimentation, it thrives on it, and the risk of failure is ever-present.
This gig economy, where terms like the ‘sigma grind set’ and ‘side-hustles’ are perpetually thrown around, ensures that everyone is under constant pressure to make the most of their time, their hobbies, their investments, and their savings. If you aren’t constantly winning, you are losing, and no one wants to be a loser!
In fact, Scott Sandage, in his book Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, makes the argument that, in part, the American dream has relied on the capacity to fail. He asserts that it is the failures among us that “embody the American fear that our fondest hopes and our worst nightmares may be one and the same….the [American] dream that equates freedom with success…could neither exist nor endure without failure.”
There are those who view anything short of immediate success as a moral failing, with the blame placed squarely on the shoulders of the individual, without taking into account any other contributing elements. Consider the launch of a product, factors such as the political climate, the economy, and the brand’s goodwill have an enormous impact on whether or not the product becomes successful.
The Inevitability of Failure
There are several arenas where failure is a feature, not a bug. Medical technology is the most obvious such industry, where every experimental drug goes through countless trials before it can be sent to market. Even promising drugs and procedures can sometimes fail. Not all ‘failures’ are created equal though; accidental discoveries, like the microwave, penicillin, and anesthesia have all been the results of experiments gone wrong.
If we talk about sports, a player’s batting average is calculated by the number of scored hits (the sum of singles, doubles, triples, and home runs) divided by the number of attempts. Missed opportunities are built into the calculation method. It’s true that the higher the number of attempts, the lower the batting average will be, but the very fact that it is part of the equation speaks to the impossibility of this number being zero. Even Babe Ruth missed some of the swings he took!
Teachable Moments
With so many possibilities for things to go wrong, it almost feels like a miracle when the stars align and you succeed. Instead of bracing for impact and being resigned to your fate, you should treat it as an opportunity to learn valuable lessons. Think of it this way: you haven’t failed, you have moved one step closer to success.
Learning And Sharing
Wear failure like a badge of honor. There is something noble about giving it your best shot, resilience is truly a virtue. It creates a unique opportunity for a community or company to learn from each others’ tough breaks.
Experimenting And Executing
A company that believes in taking calculated risks perfects the experimentation and execution cycle, with quick turnaround times. The more you test out new ideas, the quicker you learn what works and what doesn’t.
Future Innovation Value
Building off the results and findings of previous experimentation exponentially improves your product every round. Big risks can mean big rewards.
Customer Feedback
A significant part of the experimentation phase is based on customer feedback. Brand loyalty is important, especially in the tech industry. Whatever form this feedback takes, whether it’s surveys, focus groups, reviews, a customer service line, or even a subreddit, when people feel that their comments and concerns are not only being heard but also implemented, it creates a powerful relationship between the brand and the customer.
Employee Well Being
A company that encourages initiative and rewards proactivity rather than penalizing failure, contributes to employees’ mental well-being. When people know they have permission to fail, they are willing to stick their neck out and the company benefits as a whole.
Swit and Failure
Swit CEO Josh Lee knows a thing or two about failure. After two unsuccessful attempts, Swit has been his third business venture.
His very first job was as an English teacher in Korea. Despite reservations about the standardized national curriculum, Josh found the actual teaching, the one-on-one interactions with the students, a deeply moving exchange. That is something that comes through in the way Swit has been built, where the interaction informs the process, and everyone works toward a common goal.
But there was something about standardized processes that allow no room for customization - that don’t take learning differences and varied ingenuity into account - that really rubbed him the wrong way.
This was the motivation behind the development of a user-friendly web-based app for teachers to create unique teaching materials that would cater to students at different learning levels. The LMS showed a lot of promise and potential but didn’t see the success that Josh envisioned. His efforts still had value, because this later became the blueprint for developing Swit’s underlying technology.
Swit’s Philosophy
Swit was launched in 2019, to a market that was ready for a Work OS that combined the best features of chat and task apps, with customizable functions that could be adopted company-wide. Swit offered the scalability and interoperability to handle any company, any industry, and any function.
Swit was a game-changer, not just as an app, but also as a company. The importance of the freedom to fail and learn from it is ingrained in Swit’s virtues and philosophy.
This culture has continued to prosper as Swit encourages a problem-loving and solution-oriented approach. Roadblocks are seen as an opportunity to try a unique approach and creative solutions. Swit believes in unlearning the regressive mindsets of stiff corporate culture and learning to embrace challenges and hardships.
These Virtues, Core Values, and Codes of Culture all contribute to our continual growth as people, as a product, and as a company. If you’d like to learn more about how Swit can benefit your business, contact us to schedule a meeting with our team.
Nyda Ahmad, Copywriting Manager
