In 1982, Dreyer’s/Edy’s Ice Cream taster, John Harrison (whose taste buds, by the way, are insured for a million dollars) came up with the idea to put Oreo cookies in vanilla ice cream. The marketing people didn’t like it (probably based on some research, which is all too often the best way to kill a good idea) and decided to go with fresh peach ice cream instead. Cookies and cream went in the round file.
Peach is cool. Peach is good. But before they could get the peach ice cream to market, a hailstorm pounded that year’s crop into mush and the marketing people came back to John and asked what he had in his files. He had, of course, cookies and cream using Oreos. That is how history gets printed. Years later, cookies and cream is still the fastest growing ice cream flavor in history and now sits at number five on the human tongue favorite flavor list. There is controversy, however.
The ongoing debate about exactly who invented cookies and cream using Oreos (Blue Bell and South Dakota State also claim they invented it) still swirls in freezers across the country. It just proves the old adage that success has many fathers, but failure is a bastard. The line between the success and failure is often thin.
Ben Cohen, the flavor-inventing half of Ben and Jerry’s, says the flavor graveyard at B&J’s is a well-stocked creamy cemetery as he recalls many failed flavors that didn’t make superstar Cherry Garcia status – peanut butter and jelly among them.
Failure is like the plague in American business, the exception being entrepreneurs. Most independent and innovative thinkers see failure for what it is: The learning curve to real success.
Thomas Edison is known for many inventions, but his belief that success can only come after working through failure is an R&D legend. His comment about finding over a thousand ways not to make a light bulb before finding the one way that worked rings in the ears of many inventors. He’s not alone in his view of failure. Genghis Khan, Walt Disney, and Abraham Lincoln all overcame many failures before achieving great successes. Steve Jobs, as you recall, was booted from Apple before he came back to resurrect the company he founded with Steve Wozniak, turning it into the innovation envy of the world. Who hasn’t heard the story of Michael Jordan being cut from his 10th grade basketball team?
Failure is only truly failure if we let it stop us from moving forward. Authentic innovators seldom consider the word failure in their lexicon. It’s called tinkering, adjusting, experimenting, testing, R&D, whatever. To companies that want to succeed, there is no such thing as failure. Try this, try that, see what works, move on. To profit from your mistakes, you have to make some.
Albert Einstein said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
While it is the badge of the winner to get up one more time than he or she is knocked down, failure is the big F Word in today’s corporate environment because in a quarterly profit mindset, it’s hard to look at failure as anything but catastrophic, usually ending with firings. Yet it is no secret that failure, done successfully, breeds breakthroughs. Going down a new, untried road may seem like a risk until it proves to be the path to the future. Or to rip off Douglas McArthur, “We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.”
I believe there are two kinds of failure, a) active failure and b) passive failure. Active failure is making your mistakes while trying to do something extraordinary. Passive failure is making your mistakes while doing nothing. The inference here should be obvious. Make your active mistakes early, learn from them and use that knowledge to push the envelope.
Clearly, some failures are just stupid ideas (New Coke, maybe). Intelligent failures, however, are just good business, especially if you want to compete in today’s risk adverse marketplace. Risk implies the possibility of failure. No risk, no failure – and no success. Fail early, before the costs are too great, and you will likely find something amazing to succeed with later. Fail later and you will probably just be a failure.
During that next meeting, as you watch PowerPoint charts and graphs, ask where your company has failed lately. It may be the most fertile ground to plant the seeds of innovation. It may be your opportunity to shine. Or it may get you fired, considering most companies’ view on the subject.
If you throw more touchdowns than anyone, you are also likely the interception leader as well. Same with home runs – if you hit the most homers, you’ll also probably have the most strikeouts.
No one wants to work for Failure, Inc. Everyone wants to punch the clock at Innovation, Inc. Yet, in reality, they may be one and the same. Success is all in how you fail.