Failure Continued.

A couple posts ago, I made a quick aside on good failure. Basically, I think there are two kinds, often confused when maybe they should be conflated.

1. Shotgun - the "do tons of things and cross your fingers" approach

2. Scientific - the iterative "i made no mistake but learned one more thing not to do" approach.

And as I said, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. We're not scientific enough to embrace the iterative approach all the way. And the shotgun approach doesn't really satisfy the need for fiscal discipline that most companies have. Either way, failure is difficult, so some level of hedging is probably needed.

A few reasons why:

1. The comfort of reach and frequency - While returns are clearly diminishing on any traditional ad buy, we are pretty good with arriving at a rough rate of return. At least it's more knowable than if you don't have those two metrics. Without reach, we're sort of working without a net.

2. The hand wringing, blinding focus on the avoidance of failure - Jonah Lehrer has a post up today about people that remember everything, as in, can forget nothing. Sounds pretty awesome at first, until you read a little further and find that most of them go nuts, often after having difficulty with simple tasks we are able to complete without thought. It's excruciating.

He struggled with mental tasks normal people find easy. When he read a novel, he would instantly memorize every word by heart, but miss the entire plot. Metaphors and poetry - though they clung to his brain like Velcro - were incomprehensible. He couldn't even use the phone because he found it hard to recognize a person's voice "when it changes its intonation...and it does that 20 or 30 times a day."

Which is the way most companies react to failure. They hash and rehash. It paralyzes them for future experimentation, and often causes them to walk away completely after casting the entire thing as something that "just doesn't work." No question we need to do our best to find answers, but we need to be scientific enough to gain the knowledge, while forgetful enough to, as we say in Texas, get back on the saddle.

3. The Luck factor - Frankly, some things were because we just got lucky. We happened to be in the right place at the right time. So for all the picking apart and recap that's possible, it'll never lead us all the way to a replicable solution. In fact, it could keep us chasing after something that's passed. And the inherent luck in some solutions is just unknowable with any level of assuredness.

Bottom line: We are shifting into a culture that favors doing over saying. We know this. And we know doing things creates a situation in which success only comes when we cause a reaction, not simply an impression; reach is unforecastable and frequency matters little. So if you're looking for a pre-destined ROI, you're in the wrong game.

And while scientific failure may be great to help get passed failure avoidance, it may be an obstacle to assessing the luck factor. The shotgun approach is awesome in the name of experimentation, but it sure doesn't make anyone feel all that comfortable. So in that middle ground rests good failure.

(stolen, then butchered pic from flickr)

Comments

[Lori Magno]

Nice line of thinking Paul! But don't forget the fear factor. The fear that if they don't do something they'll miss some 'opportunity' or, worse, the fear that if they do something and it fails in someone else's eyes that they'll never get another chance.

Hmm, paralysis as a corporate model. Let's see who tries it next...

[paulmcenany]

I'm guessing nearly everyone will try it next. And they'll be really awesome at it. :)

Although, that first fear you're talking about sounds like the fear of not doing something. I sorta like that fear. Better than fear of doing something at all, anyway!