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“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher.
It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.”
Oscar Wilde

Mistakes in business can be horrendous. The smaller the business, usually the more difficult the market and the more specific the product or service, therefore the worse the impact of the mistake. Some corporations have an enormous margin for error, it almost doesn’t matter what they do wrong, they still survive. Companies such as Johnson & Johnson recalled medication which cost the company $250 million. This incident is known as the recall which started them all. Ironically, the biggest product recalls of all time have been either motor vehicles or medication error. Amazing that these businesses haven’t close down.

For business owners, the mistakes they make have to transform into learning opportunities. It is imperative that the concept of ‘failing forward’ be a company and a personal motto. This is the only way in which mistakes can be leveraged, and the risks associated with the failure accurately measured. Failing forward is a mindset that says “Okay, we made a mistake, how much damage has been done? What can we do to fix it? And what can we learn from this?”

This optimises using experience to build business competence. You take the experience from which you have absorbed, and you make yourself, your staff, and your business better from it. Flagellation and regret are futile. Experience allows you to leverage the competencies that you have and the competencies that you need to excel where your downfalls may have limited to. Experiences will always change you, so make it for the better.