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Be Brave, Go Fail at Something Today!

Brand Strategy 1

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.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/feb/19/wp-wikipedia-creator-had-lots-of-earlier-failures/

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?

  1. Strategy:  We had done our due diligence and  carefully crafted our broader social media strategy.
  2. Best Practices:  We examined case studies and best practices.
  3. Risk Management:  We considered risk management.  We know the potential risks of failing and can live with them.
  4. 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.

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Manoj Raheja Published January 19, 2011 by Manoj Raheja This entry was posted in Blog, Brand Strategy and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Steve Nguyen

    That’s great Manoj!

  • Allison Hunt

    This post has sparked so many great conversations since I first read it.

    It feels like more and more companies talk about embracing failure, but they aren’t really willing to put that philosophy Into practice. Because of that, I think failing fast and early is a really important aspect. Fail before you get super attached to a comfortable process or solution, fail when you have less to lose. Start failing small until you get confident enough to fail big.

  • Layla Shea

    Love the blog Manoj, especially the principles of why you are comfortable with potentially failing. The only F you’d be getting is for Fantastic ;)