Failure is Good...Isn't It?

One of the greatest lessons I learned in college was from a hard-nosed Belgium professor. Back then my goal was to become an attorney and this was my first legal studies course. This professor was hard nosed, stubborn, and didn't waste time explaining things. He hated the Latin language and did not allow anyone to speak Latin-based words. He cared very little of how his students felt and after a midterm where he failed most of the class, he said something that I have remembered clearly for the past ten years. "Failure is good...you Americans are all concerned about your grades, concerned about going to law school, and concerned about being successful. You argue too hard for your 'A' grades, well sometimes you just need to fail, because failure is good!" By the way I got a D in that class, but it was still one of the best lessons that I learned.

I watched the President's remarks yesterday while he explained his reasons for still giving GM and Chrysler a life line to survive until they come up with their next plans to rise out of the ashes. I thought about my Professor and knew exactly what he would have thought. His wrath would not only have been to the auto industry but to the banks, the newspapers, and everyone else. Let them fail.

I am outraged that failure is no longer acceptable

Failure is the basis of which success is built on. The best ideas have risen from the fundamental failures that have come before. Failure is the great test of whether one should try again. Failure presents the opportunity to rethink, to innovate, to envision. This opportunity is being taken away like phrases like "too big to fail." Failure allows us to take in the lessons learned and simply put not to repeat ourselves. A banker I knew in upper management once told me that, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." This was also about ten years ago, when we allowed failing companies to guess what...fail!!!

Our country has spent countless millions on saving our capitalist system in a not so capitalistic way. The billions that were spent could have been better spend. What did we really pay for: remodeling offices, purchasing corporate jets, giving "retention bonuses" to people who were not retained. We have been rewarding failure instead of penalizing and punishing it. The penalty for failure used to be that your company was out of business and someone would create something better. We have become a country of old ideas. Old is just old, just look at Congress. I can firmly see why things don't work there because the same old people have their same old ideas regardless of what party is in power.

What about the business models of banks or the car industry or newspapers? Did they ever have a blueprint to evolve? What genius thought of making those same gas guzzling cars, trucks, and minivans? Could the newspaper industry see their subscriptions decline and see the rise of craigslist, blogs, and the rise of internet usage to view the news? What about banks and the idea that refinancing the same house 7 times was still a good idea? Someone had to see all of this coming or were we all just marveled by the thing that was formerly called success. Where did all of the new ideas go? Remember the exact same thing happened to AOL years ago when they had over 45 million customers on dial-up. They didn't plan far enough ahead with to introduce broadband, got behind, and is now dying a slow death.

An Outraged Idea: Let's stop with the fear mongering and say good bye to one of these banks and automobile companies. Let's give some unknown genius the opportunity to create something that can start the next great economy. Let's take this old system off life support, let it die, and allow it to be reborn. Let us allow failure to be the beginning of our next economic boom.