Failure in business is part of success

Have you ever tried something new for your business that didn’t go how you thought it would? Me too. Don’t let it make you feel like a failure. Ever heard of Google Jaiku, a micro-blogging service to rival Twitter? What about the Apple Pippin, a home video game system set to compete with Sony PlayStation? Probably not. They were pretty much total flops.

“Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless,” Thomas Edison once said. When developing something new, failure is part of the process. The important part is determining what went wrong, learning from it, and using that knowledge gained to succeed in the future.

Many companies choose not to talk about where they fell short. Instead, bring failure to the surface to discuss and reflect. It will provide the opportunity to innovate, and it might just lead to your next great idea.