“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.”

—Thomas J. Watson, American businessman

I do like this quote. Mr. Watson was consummate salesman and a career business leader. You can read about his attempts at many careers “failures” as a teacher, butcher, bookkeeper, and even a variety of sales positions on his was to running IBM for over forty years. The idea is that no one is put in charge of running the company in their first position. The variety of positions and companies does provide the background of success and failures to learn and build upon.

Why are the best leadership skills learned from failures? The majority of new initiatives are not going to be a success. So, it is the ability to know the signs to head the other direction from the current endeavor. It is hard to say “stop” when you have been committed to a project, product line, people or a company. It is easier to continue the course until the issues “hit you over the head” and it is too late. Hitting “reset” is a large part of running a business and being a leader.