Failure: A Transformative Opportunity #cindertoflame

Failure is an intriguing topic with many faces. It signifies the end of something, embodies a lack of success or when unchecked can lead to demise. If sprightly managed, failure opens the portal to a transformative opportunity. View the photo of a butterfly emerging from a dark place and how it fits with this excerpt from Richard Bach’s quote:

“…What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.”

Chronicles of failure abound, ranging from personal narratives to famously successful people such as: Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Colonel Sanders, Stephen King, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Spielberg.

Harnessing the courage to take risks is suggested in J.K. Rowling’s reflection about her early experience with failure:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

Several initiatives have been launched in academia to help students embrace failure: “Failing Well” at Smith College and the “Stanford Resilience Project”. Their aim is to normalize and instill a positive mindset with respect to failure and build resilience.

Studies report that embarking upon an entrepreneurial business venture is fraught with failure. Despite this knowledge, I launched Cinder to Flame and began with a singular niche in Municipal Consulting. Feedback prompted me to broaden my client base. Cinder to Flame's services are relevant to Corporations - across public and private service and industry sectors - who share Cinder to Flame's vision for sustainable, quality living.

My view is that success is an arduous journey of learning from failed attempts, discarding ideas and entertaining redirection, coupled with fresh starts.

Megan McArdle is an author and business blogger who reports on the rise and fall of Corporations. A few examples of failed Corporations include Polaroid, Kodak, Compaq and Blockbuster. In contrast, companies such as Coca-Cola, Dyson Vacuums, Netflix and Amazon remain top performers. Survival of Corporations is dependent upon building a healthy corporate culture: rejecting complacency with past success, encouraging risk taking and sanctioning failure to maintain an innovative market position.

Comfort with failure at all corporate levels is critical during the implementation stage of major innovation because failure is inevitable. Experimentation must allow employees the freedom to fail without negative consequences. Leadership accountability for shaping a psychologically safe work environment also necessitates humility that their intuition may be wrong.

A known pitfall is when leaders crave success (and avoid failure) by focusing on experimental designs with optimal conditions. This intercepts learning from failure with real life applications and bars the iterative process of delving deep into root causes, making changes and testing innovative solutions.

During my former career in health care services, I was captivated by the “Failure Conference” that was hosted by Health Quality Ontario and Women’s College Hospital. It “brought together health system leaders, innovators and visionaries from every sector of Ontario’s health system.” The conference tagline was "Failure: Facing it, Embracing it, Learning from it."

Cinder to Flame helps Corporations solve complex challenges with strategic services that energize people, fuel a healthy corporate culture and ignite major innovation.

Among multiple facets of a healthy corporate culture for major innovation is psychological safety, with healthy attitudes and positive mindsets toward failure. Perhaps we should even consider celebrating failure?

Failure offers a transformative opportunity and a new beginning, enjoy my personal story: https://www.cindertoflame.ca/bio

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