The Other "F" Word

Nobody wants to fail, but failure is a fact of life. Most of us treat it as a regrettable, even shameful, event best overlooked. In truth, failure can be a game-changing strategic resource that can help you and your organization achieve the greater success you crave.

The Other "F" Word shows how successful leaders and teams are putting failure to work every day - to re-engage employees, spark innovation and accelerate growth. Authors Danner and Coopersmith - with their rare blend of senior-level executive experience, global advising, teaching acumen and cross-discipline perspective - share these valuable new practices, and show how they can improve results across your organization. Based on exclusive interviews with prominent leaders and insightful examples from their own in-depth work, the book features a practical seven-stage framework to liberate failure as a force to advance your leadership agenda. After all, everyone creates and confronts failure on a daily basis. Why not use it to your advantage? The Other "F" Word shows you how to:

• Start an open, productive conversation about failure across your organization
• Reduce the fear of failure that stifles initiative, creativity and engagement
• Anticipate, prepare for and respond to failure, so you can leverage it when it happens
• Harness failure as a catalyst to drive innovation, improve performance and strengthen culture

Failure's like gravity – pervasive and powerful. Whether you're a leader or team member of a startup, a growing business, or an established enterprise, failure is today's lesson for tomorrow. Let The Other "F" Word show you how to apply this lesson and take your company where it needs to go.

Foreword by Jeffrey Bewkes, Chairman and CEO, Time Warner xv

Preface: A Book About a Topic Nobody Wants to Talk About xvii

Chapter 1 What’s in It for Me? Your Personal Guided Book Tour 1

Part I What: The Facts and Facets of Failure 11

Chapter 2 The Other F Word: “Failure” Is Such a Loaded Word 13

Chapter 3 The Gravity of Failure and Failure’s Gravity 21

Chapter 4 Defining Failure: Mistakes and Unwelcome Outcomes That Matter 27

Chapter 5 Fear and Memory: Failure’s Force Multipliers 37

Part II When and Where: How Failure Appears at Different Organizational Phases 47

Chapter 6 Start-Ups: Launching Your Venture in the Land of Failure 49

Your Role: Passionate Convincer

Chapter 7 Keep-Ups: Surviving and Thriving After You Meet Payroll 67

Your Role: Confident Juggler

Chapter 8 Grown-Ups: Dodging the Oxymoron of “Big Company Agility” 81

Your Role: Trusted Colleague

Part III How: Using the Failure Value Cycle to Advance Your Organization 97

Chapter 9 The Failure Value Cycle: Seven Stages Where You Can Leverage or Flunk Failure 99

Chapter 10 Stage One—Respect: Acknowledge the Gravity of Failure 103
Your Role: Straight Talker

Chapter 11 Stage Two—Rehearse: It’s Not Just About Fire Drills 121
Your Role: Tenacious Coach

Chapter 12 Stage Three—Recognize: Pick Up the Signals of Failure Earlier 131
Your Role: Watchful Monitor

Chapter 13 Stage Four—React: Deal with It! 143
Your Role: Team Captain

Chapter 14 Stage Five—Reflect: Turn Failure from a Regret to a Resource 153
Your Role: Inquisitive Student

Chapter 15 Stage Six—Rebound: Retake the Initiative 165
Your Role: Field General

Chapter 16 Stage Seven—Remember: Embed Failure Savvy in Your Culture 173
Your Role: Proud Storyteller

Chapter 17 The Failure Value Report Card: A Practical Tool to Help You Put Failure to Work 183

Part IV Now: Put the Other F Word to Work 193

Chapter 18 Creating the Failure-Savvy Organization 195

Chapter 19 Escape the Gravity of Failure: Leading the Fallible Organization 209

Afterword by China Gorman, CEO, Great Place to Work Institute 213
Appendix—Our Classrooms: Putting Failure to Work in Creating Value 215
Acknowledgments 225
About the Authors 227
Notes 229
Index 249
Presenting The Other “F” Word Keynote 259

JOHN DANNER is a management consultant, professor, and entrepreneur. He advises global enterprises and emerging ventures, and anchors international executive education programs. He teaches innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, and leadership at the University of California Berkeley and Princeton University; and conceived the idea for TED U[niversity]. A frequent keynote speaker at conferences on five continents, he and his wife live in Berkeley, CA and New York City.

Visit www.JohnDanner.com

MARK COOPERSMITH is a corporate executive, entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and professor. A Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, he teaches innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership to students and executives from around the world. He has built and run global businesses for Sony and Newell Rubbermaid, has launched successful Silicon Valley startups, and speaks often to audiences internationally. He and his family live in Tiburon, CA.

Visit www.MarkCoopersmith.com

Everyone wants success. Organizations want greater innovation, stronger growth, and deeper employee engagement. If you’re an executive, entrepreneur or team member, you know how hard that is to do. The good news is you’re sitting on a largely untapped strategic resource that can help, but most organizations and managers prefer not to talk about it. It’s failure, the “Other F Word”—and it’s one asset you and your colleagues create and pay for every day. You might as well put it to work.

How? In this provocative book, the authors share failure-savvy insights from exclusive interviews with leaders of large multinationals, small and mid-size businesses, and startup ventures. Danner and Coopersmith add their unique interdisciplinary background and perspectives as executives, entrepreneurs, board members, and advisors to global enterprises and growing companies. As professors at the University of California Berkeley and Princeton, they also contribute their original research and classroom experience with students and executives from around the world.

Their practical 7-stage Failure Value Cycle helps you avoid failure in the first place, recognize it earlier, deal with it better when it happens (which it will), and leverage it to drive stronger performance. Danner and Coopersmith can help you unlock the potential of failure by respecting its inevitability, taking it out of the realm of taboo, talking about it openly, learning from it, and applying its lessons.

Failure’s like gravity—a pervasive, powerful fact of life. You may want to defy it, but you can’t deny it. And, like gravity itself, failure can be harnessed to achieve the success you want. Managed effectively, it can help you better serve the needs of your customers and investors, build stronger trust within your organization, and inspire greater creativity, commitment, and confidence across your organization.

Tap into the power of The Other “F” Word to reap the rewards of a more failure-positive approach to your organization’s most important priorities. Put failure to work today!