Failure is the key to success
No person or company is successful at everything, and failure can teach us a great deal. In fact, you cannot innovate without learning from failures.
Time and time again, I hear from B2B managers and executives that overcoming organizational challenges and long-held (and, to be fair, validated) attitudes about “doing things the way we’ve always done them” are among the biggest barriers when it comes to adopting e-commerce.
Creating a culture of innovation and breaking down the silos that prevent real, necessary progress is no easy feat, especially if the “old ways” are still working.
However, at the recent Game Plan 2014 event in Chicago, we heard from experts like Dr. James Canton and Erik Brynjolfsson that change is coming whether your C-suite, IT department or marketing team knows it. And, those who don’t adapt will go the way of the dinosaurs.
“Managers need to understand the nature and scope of these changes and that they are very disruptive,” says Brynjolfsson. “Business as usual is not going to work at with this rapid rate of digital and combinatorial change.”
When it comes to managing change, one of the key factors in a corporate culture is embracing the notion that innovation is not simply a matter of having a “eureka moment,” as we hear from author Steven Johnson in the video below.
Instead, it is a slow adoption of an overall atmosphere in which failure is not to be feared, but, rather, rewarded.
That’s right—B2B brands need not only to embrace the concept of failure, they also need to see it as a necessary step on the journey to transformation.
The word “failure” in this case needs to be defined. We’re not talking about huge, catastrophic failures in which companies are lost. Instead, consider a series of rapid, small failures and the adjustments that come directly from or following those failures as a series of success. Well-considered, incremental risks will pay off even if the immediate results are not what were originally hoped for.
The B2B e-commerce market is predicted to be as large as $6.7 billion by 2020. That’s a lot of opportunity up for grabs. If you’re hemmed in by organizational barriers, now is the time to start busting them down.
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