I stand before you today with inadvisable bangs.
I thought they’d work. I was wrong. I tried to cut wispy bangs, I failed, and now the penalty for my failure is that I’m stuck with the awkward grow-out period. I feel self-conscious about them and have had to invest in bobby pins. The world, however, has not ended.
(No, I will not post pictures.)
In theory, people in the advertising industry shouldn’t be afraid of failure. We do it all the time. Concepts get rejected. Campaigns get rejected. Prospective clients go with someone else. Creatives are meant to take criticism with grace and turn it into better work.
And yet, the prospect of failure has a tendency to become a terrifying monster. We’ve gotten this idea that it’s a personal weakness, a lack of talent, a proof of overreaching. We’ve gotten success tangled up in ego. And it makes us afraid to do things — try new things, learn new things, take chances. It keeps us from trying new hobbies because we’re afraid of looking stupid. Because the world ends when you look stupid, right? Much better to avoid looking stupid than to discover something you enjoy, or sell a big idea, or gain information that might make your next attempt more successful. Better to play it safe. Don’t try if you don’t know it’ll work.
Great idea.
To be clear: I’m not saying you should go ahead and try because you might succeed. I’m saying you should go ahead and try because chances are good you’ll fail, and that’s just not a big deal.
Failure is a good thing.
Bungee jumping and open-heart surgery are basically the only times it’s essential to succeed the first time. In all other pursuits, failing from time to time isn’t just an acceptable thing but a beneficial thing.
It’s educational.
Between success and failure, failure is the only one that’s a learning experience. Success only tells you that whatever you just did worked, well enough, this time. Failure gives you an opportunity to improve — research, iterate, brainstorm, disassemble, analyze. It teaches you how things work, why things happen, what not to do. The only way success does that is if you immediately use it as a jumping-off point to start exploring other ways to achieve the same effect, or to achieve something better — in essence, to treat your success as a failure to gather more information or learn more things. Which might sound disheartening, and/or the kind of thing that might give a girl daddy issues well into her thirties, but it’s good, because you’re coming at it from the understanding that failure isn’t a bad thing.
(Just kidding, Dad.)
It’s good practice.
Because you’re going to be failing a lot in life — like, a lot — and it’s not going to go well if you collapse into a pile of trembling tapioca every time you do. Putting yourself in lower-pressure opportunities to fail gets you used to the feeling of, just from time to time, failing, so when it happens in a higher-pressure situation, you don’t decompensate.
Your first minor screwup at your new job, or your first lousy painting, or your first dismal 10K time, is like the first ding in the paint of your new car — it sucks, but it’s not catastrophic, and now it’s out of the way. You’re not going to go off-roading in your Camry now that you have a scratch on your fender, but you’re not going to be nearly as worried about preserving a pristine paint job moving forward.
It reminds us that we’re human.
And some of us need the reminder. Success upon success feels good, but it also tends to give us the idea that a) we deserve it, and b) we did it all ourselves, which, sure, might be the case, but… is it? Really? Having to hit the ground once in a while is a good reminder that we all happen to live there.
I’ve mentioned my newly discovered love for the Bon Appetit YouTube channel, and some of my favorite videos involves the EIC and a senior food editor in a series I’ve seen described as “teenage girl teaches her single father how to cook.” Watching the editor-in-chief of a gourmet food magazine forget to preheat the pan before adding the olive oil is a good illustration of the fact that even the most successful among us screw up sometimes (and that correcting your boss without getting fired is a delicate, delicate process).
It shows us what we’re capable of.
Specifically, it shows us that we’re capable of not succeeding but also not dying. Whether it’s losing a job and the world not collapsing, or getting passed over for a promotion and making do, or taking criticism for an ad layout and soldiering on, or falling off the end of a treadmill and feeling really embarrassed and then continuing to tread, it shows us that we’re smart enough, determined enough, and brave enough to keep going.
I’ve spent some time volunteering with therapeutic horseback riding programs for children with disabilities, and there’s been a consistent strategy for dealing with a kid who’s fallen off the horse (assuming there’s no actual injury involved): If you can get in there before the kid starts crying and say, “Wow, that was exciting,” the chances of tears plummet. Suddenly, the tumble has gone from a scary, painful, potentially embarrassing trauma to a moment of excitement in an otherwise mundane trail ride. It’s just a matter of dusting yourself and getting back on — no. No, I’m not going to say it.
That blood you shed on the mountain bike trail is proof that you were brave enough to attempt something awesome and that when you fell down, you got right back on the trail. Be proud of it. (But don’t put it on Instagram. That’s gross.)
It gives us a good story to tell.
Nobody crowded around the bar on a Friday evening wants to hear about something that went right. Things that go right are boring. We want the stories of things that go wrong — the more catastrophically, the better — because we can all identify with them and because misery shared is misery halved. I’ve dined out on stories about Grandpa, The Riddler, Average Joe, and numerous other failed dating matches because “Yeah, he was nice, we got tacos and we’re going out again on Wednesday” is entertaining to no one.
Failing like Google
Google is basically a foundational technology in the industry. Our lives are full of their successes — Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, Analytics, Chrome, AdWords, Search (of course), and others we don’t even think of, not to mention all the properties they’ve acquired.
And then there are also complete misses like Glass, Wave, and Google+. And plenty of others. Definitely not part of our lives, and in some cases (Glass, for instance) a public and comical level of failure. And it’s because… that’s just how Google works. They come up with ideas they think will probably work, and then they develop ideas that are very likely to work, and many of them do, and when some of them don’t, they don’t shut down — they take what they’ve learned and go back to the lab.
Google has developed a specific process for reacting to failure, and none of it involves rending of garments or quitting in despair. (I don’t think so, anyway. It certainly isn’t included in their established internal process.) It involves identifying problems, documenting, studying, not assigning blame, and using it all to promote improvement.
Google isn’t afraid of failure — they expect it. They know that every swing isn’t going to be a hit. But they take chances informedly and strategically, in a way that their failures don’t endanger their chances of success in the future. No one cried into their beer when Glass proved to be a dog — they just got to work on the next big thing.
Pitch the damn concept already.
We’re afraid of pitching a bold idea to a client. What if they hate it? What if we lose them? Well, look at the concept: Is it so terrible, so bold, so audaciously off-brief that you’re likely to actually get fired for it? (If so, are you sure you’re cut out for advertising?) Or is it full of choices? Did you come up with it because you sincerely believe it’s the best way to satisfy the client’s needs? Is it backed by the strength of your expertise and experience? If the client takes a chance on this bold idea, will they be all the better for it?
Well, shit, dude, pitch the concept. Pitch it like Pedro Martinez. Give the client your thought process, your rationale, the reasoning behind your choices, the places it satisfies the brief and explanations for the places it doesn’t. Defend your bold idea. Maybe the client will bite, or maybe they’ll want to file down some of the sharper edges, and you’ll be disappointed about that. But that’s what failure would look like. If you pitch a concept that’s bad enough to get you fired on the spot… see above in re: asking if advertising really is for you.
Worst-case scenario, “I don’t like it. Go back and give me something else.” Is that what you’re afraid of? Are you afraid of pitching a great idea that you truly believe in because you might end up having to start over? If you do, you’ve now learned something about what your client likes, and you’ve been given a second opportunity to impress them. If you succeed, your client is better off, and you have the satisfaction of watching your awesome idea come into the world.
Consider: When, due to a supply-chain mixup, KFCs in the UK and Ireland ran out of chicken, some folks at Mother London said, “What you need in this time of reputational crisis is to write fuck on a chicken bucket,” and the client was all, “Sounds legit.” If their pitch had failed, they could have said, “Well, at least we’ve learned that KFC isn’t ready for a FCKet.” But they succeeded, and it was huge, and the agency ended up with a Gold Lion for it.
That could be you. You could give one of your clients a FCKet of their own. Or maybe you’d fail and have to start over, but okay, that happens.
An important note about failure
One other aspect of failure needs to be addressed: If you’re a parent, teacher, boss, coach, creative director, or other person in a position of authority, you have influence over those underneath you, and if they become petrified at the thought of failure, it’s partly on you. If you’re teaching your kids that failure is the end of the world, they’ll believe it. If you punish them like it’s the end of the world, they’ll fear it. If you treat failure like a character flaw rather than a fact of life, they’ll learn not to try.
If your junior creative comes to you with a big idea that needs work, and you treat them like an idiot, they’re not going to bring you big ideas anymore. You’re going to get crappy ideas, and then you’re going to think your junior is incapable of good stuff, when instead they’re just afraid of taking a chance. No, you don’t have to stroke their hair and lie to them about the quality of their work, but come on. Give them specific, constructive critique so they can come back with the good stuff. It doesn’t take a participation trophy to just not break their spirit.
If your creative team comes to you with a big, good concept that you’re afraid to pitch to the client because you’re worried they won’t bite, you’re going to stop getting big, good things out of your team. They’re just going to bring you the same, boring stuff, because rejection gets exhausting after a while, and then you aren’t serving your client, and then your client is leaving you for an agency that’s going to win at Cannes for putting FCK on the side of a chicken bucket.
Don’t lie to your kids/employees/creatives/whomever about the quality of their work, but also don’t treat them like their failures are the end of the world. Create an environment where failure isn’t a terrifying thing, but a thing to move forward from.
Go forth and fail.
I’m currently posting this at 11:25 a.m. instead of my normal 10 a.m., because stuff happens and it’s better to get it out late than not at all and not getting it out on time isn’t the end of the world. A scrape from a bike tumble isn’t the end of the world. Bad bangs aren’t the end of the world. And I shall wear them proudly — okay, no, I shall pin them to the side until they grow long enough to incorporate into the rest of my hair. But I won’t be afraid to leave the house with them, because… they’re bad bangs. And I have plenty of other excuses to never leave the house.