The characterization of successful entrepreneurs was and still is the focus of media attention. Successful entrepreneurs are often seen as role models for students, young entrepreneurs or as consultants for political decision-makers. Unsuccessful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are stigmatized. There seems to be a common understanding of what a successful entrepreneur is. Often, however, the diversity of what is to be understood as ‘success’ is not taken into account. In addition, it is essential that success depends on culturally-related regional, state or country-specific entrepreneurial ecosystems. A look at innovation centers, such as Silicon Valley, Bangalore or Shanghai, shows that there are quite different, if not to say diverging, views on when a project, service, etc. can be considered “successful”.
Success and failure is, therefore, a question of interpretation. It can hardly be denied that we describe an action that has not produced the desired, hoped for or targeted result as a failure. We often pretend that binding criteria exist for success and failure alike. If we assess something as a failure, of course, our very own evaluation flows into it, which is why failure depends on the goals we have set for ourselves and the target consensus set with project partners or stakeholders. It is easy to see that success and failure are equally relative. In both cases, the actor should not indulge excessively in personal experience. True to Vespasian’s advice: “Just as common thinking betrays boasting of good success too much, so it is not appropriate for a man to be inconsolable towards failure. For here as there it quickly changes again […].”[1]
Nevertheless, success is experienced all the more intensively when it is preceded by the experience of failure. Whoever wants to win has to not only accept defeats, but also to crystallize the positive elements. The recently popular “FuckUp-Nights” celebrate failure as a part of success. These events are nothing less than an expression of entrepreneurs` self-confidence and their reaction to failure.
Failure is by no means an obstacle to success. Nor is it simply a failure, but rather helps to rethink and reassess the moment of success. De facto it can be stated against this background that the path to important goals is often paved with failures: “Nature wanted nothing great to be achieved, and put obstacles in the way of the creation of precisely the most beautiful works; after all, it made this the law of birth that larger living beings are carried longer in the womb.” [2]
On the one hand, the concept of the “serial entrepreneur” is undoubtedly based on failing without losing motivation due to an undesirable outcome, which is not always easy to accept. On the other hand, failure can be viewed in an extremely differentiated way and must be put into perspective ex post. Therefore, one is inclined to admit to the everyday wisdom that failure can teach one more than just the proverbial grain of truth.
For the future as leader, it is decisive to know to what extent it is possible to incorporate accepting failure, drawing the right conclusions from it, and not losing the “locus of control” as entrepreneur, entrepreneurial manager or intrapreneur. Indeed, success may be the greatest pleasure only when one is able to draw a concrete comparison with less successful times and feels compelled to leave one`s comfort zone. Could success and failure be just two sides of the “entrepreneurship” coin?
[1] Flavius Josephus: Der Jüdische Krieg, 2. Bd., München 1966, 10.
[2] Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35 – um 96 p. C. n.): Institutio oratorio X.