Embracing failure to find winning formulas

"Winning, in either business or warfare, is all about gaining the upper hand. Call it ‘competitive edge’ or ‘operational advantage’, it’s about making bold moves and taking unforeseen actions that your competitors or adversaries simply do not anticipate or have an answer for. History regales these daring ventures, where unorthodox tactics and novel ideas have enabled game-changing outcomes. From my own Service one need look no further than the struggles of Sir Barnes Wallis to perfect the bouncing bomb used in the successful Dam Busters Raids of 1943, or Whittle’s dozen-year endeavour to develop the jet engine. In the commercial sector we can take solace from Thomas Eddison’s ten-thousand failures in his development of the electric light bulb and over five-thousand early prototypes of Sir James Dyson’s dual-cyclone vacuum cleaner.

But none of these revolutionary ideas were spontaneous inspirations of genius that worked at the first time of asking. They were the product of protracted and painstaking planning, experimentation and failure, which allowed errors to be identified and refinements made to enable eventual success. The common factor – the acceptance of failure and the will to learn from mistakes to make the next iteration better. After all, innovation is a matter of trial and error, and we must become comfortable with the latter if we are to genuinely exploit the rewards available. The problem is: failure just isn’t in our nature. The ‘can-do’ military culture and its associated optimism bias can, and has, perilously risked the Armed Forces on occasions; the damning conclusions of Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry painfully illustrate the issue. The fact is there needs to be a tectonic shift in attitude, risk management and blame culture if these two worlds are to successfully collide."