By MURORI KIUNGA
In Summary
- Though not a prerequisite for success, failure is an indispensable part of it.
Failure is a reality many people hardly plan for when
venturing into business. Even with the best plans in place, all
resources assembled, and due diligence in all actions; still failure is
highly probable in every business.
Various studies and available data reveal that most
businesses fail within the first few years of being set up, and the
reasons for failure may have nothing to do with the actions or inaction
of the entrepreneur.
It could be a result of unforeseen factors such as
disaster, loss of huge sums of money, rapid shift in customer
preference, activities of a competitor or emergence of substitute
products in the market, or bad luck.
Failure may kill a business but it cannot kill a
business person. I always say that entrepreneurs don’t fail; it is
enterprises that fail.
An entrepreneur can triumph over a business failure
and rise to start another venture. Though not a prerequisite for
success, failure is an indispensable part of it.
Almost all successful entrepreneurs have
encountered setbacks and even failure on their journey to success. In
most cases their success is defined and polished by those failures. In
fact, some of them had to completely change business lines.
This means that ability to cope with and conquer
failure is an important trait of entrepreneurs. Resilience after defeat
is no doubt one of the most valuable skills every entrepreneur should
have.
Fortunately, resilience and ability to cope with failure is a skill that can be learned and mastered.
There are three key steps in dealing with failure. I call them the 3As of overcoming failure. The first step is accepting.
Failure brings loss. It could be loss of money, market share, key employee or even entire business.
Once misfortunes hit your firm accept and move on.
Wailing and groaning over lost deals, money and opportunities is like
crying over spilt milk.
Once you have accepted that it has happened and it
cannot be reversed, you are able to go to the next important step —
which is adjustment.
This step is important because disappointments can
alter your lifestyle. Life is never the same after a loss. You may have
to continue, for example, paying loans and other liabilities for a
business that flopped.
You may have to change to a lifestyle you can afford and do things differently, not necessarily for better but to survive.
Yet without adjusting your life, it is impossible to move to the next step, which is advancement.
Yet without adjusting your life, it is impossible to move to the next step, which is advancement.
Nothing kills entrepreneurs faster than failure to
adjust when their enterprise collapses. Failure to adjust is a key
impediment to advancement.
You can only start advancing in life when you accept that the
worst has happened, you adjust your life accordingly, knowing that life
must continue.
Living in denial, or pretending that all is well, only
compounds the problem and hinders advancement. djustment is to
entrepreneurs what tactical retreat is to soldiers facing an infallible
adversary.
It calls for humility to start small and grow rather than interpret setbacks to mean you are a total failure.
Advancement starts by learning the lessons of
failure and initiating a new beginning. It starts the moment you realise
that past challenges are not an indicator of future failure and you
gather courage to start all over again with zeal and enthusiasm.
Mr Kiunga is a business trainer and the author
of The Art of Entrepreneurship: Strategies to Succeed in a Competitive
Market. Murorikiunga@yahoo.com
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