Failing Forward

“Leaders can let you fail and yet not let you be a failure.”

     –     General Stanley McChrystal

Nothing is about perfection.  Since, arguably, there’s only been one perfect person that ever walked the earth, it’s an unrealistic and self-defeating goal.

I get a big kick out of people who say they’ll “give 110%.”  (“Um, no you won’t.  That’s impossible, because there is only 100%.  I appreciate your willingness to give more, but I can’t cut off three of my arms, nor can I keep more than two eyes on your kids while you go to the movie.  All we have is 100% to give.  That’s it….but I digress yet again…)  Now, where was I?  Ah, yes!  Perfection.  It’s impossible…

So, why do we spend so much time avoiding failure?

Because failure sucks.

Unless you fail forward.

We’ve all heard the stories; Edison and the light bulb, 3M and the Post-It Note, etc.  We all know the stories of people who tried, again and again, sometimes for years or lifetimes, before failing so far forward that they became an “overnight success.”

Jim Yarger, my friend and the founder of Endece LLC, has spent a career as a chemist seeking a cure for cancer.  So far, he’s failed in that pursuit, seein’s how there still ain’t a cure for cancer.

In a scoreboard world where the sound bite rules, if perfection is your goal, Jim and his company are failures.  Until you understand that they’re on the verge of what may well be a cure for MS.

Not since Jonas Salk will there have been such a success if it turns out to be true.  If it doesn’t, this kind of failing forward gets us closer to one cure, maybe two.  It gets us that much closer to tomorrow being so much better than today.

I realize it’s not perfection, but help me understand how, in any way shape or form, it’s failure?