First of all, failure is costly. Just take for example the case of Coca-Cola’s release of “New Coke” in 1985. The company tried to make a beverage that no longer tasted like Coke, but tasted more like its arch-rival Pepsi. Coke loyalists said that the new beverage tasted so much sweeter even than Pepsi, which was already sweeter than the original Coke formula in the first place. Public reaction to New Coke was mostly negative; the loyalists of the company were dismayed that the company had tampered with the original Coke formula. The formulation and subsequent advertising campaign cost the company millions of dollars, and so did the subsequent pullout of the unsuccessful product from stores (Adweek: Where are the Last Few Cans of New Coke?). This failure is not exactly an option when it comes to new product launches. This becomes all the more poignant when it boils down to the hard-earned savings of investors in a project that seems to be promising, but which ended up in failure. These types of failures cost individuals their entire retirement funds, and this is a true tragedy indeed. Second, a word on hacking and what it does for a company. This is an unethical activity that, when discovered, may cause the death of a firm. Perhaps this would also contribute to failure because shortcuts were taken instead of the honest-to-goodness planning, implementing and monitoring business cycles that ought to take place in any enterprise, big or small. Hacking is cheating. It is cheating because you are competing with others with an advantage for which you did not work hard. As the article says, it is a shortcut to success but it may also lead to failure. Finally, the statement of not embracing failure, but embracing the need to be resilient if failure does come by the author is a very attractive statement. It is important that one does learn from his mistakes. He realizes and identifies exactly where he went wrong, what he did wrong, and that he does not make the mistake of committing them again. Resiliency is also important because being resilient means that one has the strength to weather the storms that accompany failure and defeat, so that one can simply shrug it off, move on, and live life again doing what one ought to do.
In the real, globalized business world, “fail fast, fail often” is really not an option. Mr. Ashgar hit the nail on the head with his true-to-life observations and comments. While failure is always a distinct possibility, there are management tools and procedures that can help an individual or a team avoid such failures. Failure is a difficult thing for investors, as this means costs. Hacking definitely should be avoided because it is tantamount to cheating, and this unethical. However, if failure is indeed inevitable, one will have to be resilient enough to pick up all the lessons learned from failing, and apply these lessons learned such that the same mistake is never committed again.
Works Cited
Ashgar, Rob. Why Silicon Valley’s “Fail Fast” Mantra is Just Hype. 14 July 2014. Web. 23 March 2016.
