Page 166 - (DK) The Business Book

164

TURN EVERY

DISASTER INTO

AN OPPORTUNITY

LEARNING FROM FAILURE

IN CONTEXT
When a company performs an activity,
FOCUS it gains experience.
Management thinking

KEY DATES
c.560 BCE Chinese philosopher
Lao Tzu says that failure is the
The company implements The experience gained
foundation of success and the
these better methods provides useful feedback,
means by which it is achieved.
and approaches in whether the activity
1960s Soichiro Honda, founder new projects. succeeded or not.
of the Honda Motor Company,
says that “success can only be
achieved through repeated
failure and introspection.” The company must analyze the feedback
to find out what could be done
1983 Apple Computer Inc.
differently and better.
releases the Lisa computer.
It is a commercial failure,
but plays a vital role in the
development of the Apple Mac.
1992 US management Every disaster is an opportunity for learning.
professor Sim Sitkin introduces
the idea of “intelligent failure”
in Learning Through Failure:
here are many stories of inventor James Dyson produced
The Strategy of Small Losses.
success built on failure: more than 5,000 prototypes before
T the US inventor Thomas he came up with a successful
Edison failed to register patents bagless vacuum cleaner. Success
for his ticker tape machine so felt for entrepreneurs always involves
compelled to continue inventing, trial and error, and resilience. US
eventually perfecting the industrialist J. D. Rockefeller, the
incandescent light bulb. British world’s first dollar-billionaire, looked