Question of the week: Can success breed failure?

[JoeSorge]

This may be one of my most favorite QOWs so far, mostly because I think we are all guilty of the sin of not asking the same "why" questions when we succeed as we do when we fail.

Why is that?

I get all excited just typing out the question.
Just imagine the strides that you could make if you did a better job quantifying your successes.

What do you think? Can success breed failure?

[gkrue]

Excellent question, although not a fun one to think about. I think success can breed complacency which breeds failure. Some of my hardest times have come after the banks accounts swelled. I approved outlays I wouldn't have in more lean times. I took a breath and we didn't pursue new business as aggressively as we had. It doesn't take long to get your head back in the game, though, when things start turning the other way.

[robhatch]

I agree with the complacency. Perhaps we drink our own Kool-aid? I wonder if it's about perspective and like anything, it's a habit that needs to be cultivated. Stepping outside your business to look at it through the eyes of your customer, employee, competition regardless of your success level is key. I think we more commonly do the first (customer perspective) but even then we likely rely on the customer feedback know as 'purchases' and accept that as perspective.

You've got me thinking about the questions I should ask from each view point....

[angelwingsweb]

This may be one of my most favorite QOWs so far, mostly because I think we are all guilty of the sin of not asking the same "why" questions when we succeed as we do when we fail.

Why is that?

I get all excited just typing out the question.
Just imagine the strides that you could make if you did a better job quantifying your successes.

What do you think? Can success breed failure?

Yes this is indeed an exciting question. And your premise is that if we look at what caused our success we may learn as much as when we look at what caused our failures, and strive to improve on the causes we identify. There are many other elements to success though, not only what we do (or don't), there are those elements that we don't like to consider at all, because they don't involve our own power (would this hurt our ego so much to realize that we aren't in total control?).

Can success breed failure? I'd say yes, in a heartbeat, if we don't acknowledge that success is the opportunity to give back, because giving thanks and sharing have always bred success and more success again! That's my personal take on the topic.

[BeckyMcCray]

I'm going to quote a much smarter business man than me, Jack Schultz (the king of small town economic development):
"I've started 13 businesses in my career and 7 of them were huge failures. But, I learned a lot from those failures which helped me to become much more successful in the long run."

Jack left that as a comment on my post about what I learned from failure (http://www.smallbizsurvival.com/2007/05/what-i-learned-from-failure.html), back in 2007. (ages ago!)

[raulcolon]

I have to agree with the previous comments Success can breed complacency and make you forget that you have to give back.

Success is part of a cycle which runs you around and it all depends on how quickly we run from stage to the other.

We win a project
We make mistakes
We learn from our mistakes
We identify opportunities out of our mistakes
and then we win another opportunity.

This cycle continues it is just a matter of accelerating the process of learning from your mistakes and making them into opportunities.

Just as Becky's message failure does also breed Success.

[DBrogan]

Success can easily breed failure. You can expand your business until it is too big to handle. You become the slave of the business and not the master. Periodically taking time to review the whole will produce a better result in the end. The word result applies to the business itself. The word result also applies to you. Are you happy with your business and how it affects you personally.

[interactive_218]

My answer is yes, success can breed failure. For me it is more kind of an exercise of what means success for each person. I have seen people unhappy, and feeling that they failed, when they didn't even know what they expected personally and professionally.

[svara]

I agree that it can lead to complacency but I also see it leading to fear. Fear that becomes the inhibitor of asking and ultimately answering why you were so successful. Is it just a lucky break or years of working hard? We are afraid to delve deep into it as sometimes we do not have a concrete answer which then opens up so many cans of worms. We should be able to clearly define why we were successful but at the same time, if we can so easily do that, then how come we have failure? I have failed at things and it is messy but when I look at successes, I generally compare what I did differently vs the failure.

[JoeSorge]

great thread you guys have going here, I'm so happy that it indeed did strike a chord.

In the end, here's what hit me.
I simply don't spend the time asking myself "why" when we succeed. It's really frustrating because I dwell on the "why" for days, weeks when I fail.
I think that I should try to focus on planning as if I were failing more than I do. Or at least start writing down WHY certain projects are succeeding.
Need to be sure to push myself to learn from success as much or more than I learn from failure.

[interactive_218]

Joe, let's use the words of Winston Churchill, "Success is never final!", for me this means that we are always waiting for more, right?