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Ten years ago I failed in business. Today, I feel that the pain of the experience has
provided me with some insight into the process of failure, along with the path to
recovery. Following are some of my failing observations:
1. Basic Truths
The company managed by people who can make the hard decisions, based on a rational
assessment of their situation (i.e. the truth), has a much better chance of long-term
survival. Companies that avoid the truth, pervert it, or refuse to consider it will fail.
2. Real Responsibility
In my case, I blamed everyone else for the actual process of failure. I was taking
responsibility for the consequences, but not the act. The truth was I
willfully screwed up. I gave other desperate people the opportunity to steal from me, and
that was my fault, not theirs. Until I understood that fact, I was not taking any real
responsibility. And until I took real responsibility, I could not take control of
the process of recovery.
3. Guilt
Guilt causes too many family-owned businesses to hold on to too many people for too damn
long when things go south. Bad business doesn’t make good society. Redistribution
without reciprocity is short-lived.
4. The Last Vestige Of Fearfulness...Never Put Your Eggs In One Basket
I find that as long as one’s head isn’t in the basket with the eggs, there is
nothing wrong with absolute focus or a lack of diversification. More often than not,
diversification ends up being a way to insure a lower overall return on investment, as
opposed to a way to increase the odds of success.
5. Looking Ahead
In the face of great hardship, people have a tendency to live in the pre-hardship past,
because it was better. For example, the New Deal gave people a reason not to exist in a
"pre-depression" fog in the U.S. That is arguably its greatest contribution. It
gave people a reason to move on...to look ahead.
Conclusion
The natural evolution in the game of business is a process of ups and downs. For some
reason, we are taught that the downs are somehow terminal. But every end is a new
beginning, and we all deserve our chance at life’s greatest lessons...inevitably the
lessons of failure. |
