By Manoj Raheja
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that…I’d be broke!
Why is that?
Fear, uneasiness, queasiness, worry, concern, insecurity…gulp. These were just some of the unsaid emotions and sentiments that you could feel in the room when a group of SW+A’ers sat in our corner boardroom thinking about how each of us was going to help the company enter the “permanent” world of blogging. You see, this is a group of very smart and talented people who pride themselves on helping their clients make better business decisions; and here we all were, knowing we did our due diligence on setting our broader strategy, but fearing what might happen when we specifically execute against blogging (What if no one reads it? What if people do read it! What if I offend someone?). I can’t speak for the others but these were just a few of the thoughts going through my head. That is until one of the Partners said something that would immediately shift the tone of the room, and would be the inspiration for my first fore into blog writing. “I can’t wait for us to just get out there and fail and flail around for 6 months. Seriously, I mean it, because then we’re really gonna get good at this!”
Huh? Come again? Fail for 6 months? YES! Because as someone famous once said, “Failure is the best form of R&D!” This concept of “failing fast” is nothing new; check out this link about Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia and see his theories of failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pKIi3LuUBg
So before you march on and take that confident plunge to failure – perhaps this will help you decide what to go and fail at!
Why were we comfortable at failing at something?
- Strategy: We had done our due diligence and carefully crafted our broader social media strategy.
- Best Practices: We examined case studies and best practices.
- Risk Management: We considered risk management. We know the potential risks of failing and can live with them.
- Risk vs. Reward: We believe this is an area of our business that if we don’t try – then we’ll really be failing.
So use these principles to find the right area to fail at; and come back and share your “failing forward” examples. It might be the first time you get an “F” at something and it still gets hung proudly on the “virtual” fridge.