“Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.” -Victor Kiam
Failure isn’t an option
We are an entrepreneurial country, and our shared profession is one of the most entrepreneurial sectors in this country. Yet we’re being taught on an almost daily basis that failure is not an option.
Who’s next to be bailed out?
How about “none of the above“?
Without failure, how does one define success?
Take for example this from a recent WSJ letter to the editor –
GM CEO Rick Wagoner should heed Frank Borman, the president of Eastern Airlines before it went bankrupt, who stated: “Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.”
Note that when Eastern Airlines went down, the world did not end. People still fly and airplanes are still produced.
Must we be allowed to fail?
Is this a scorched philosophy? No, it’s a recognition that we must be allowed to fail.
Realogy is a massive company with legacy costs, systems and infrastructure that is struggling to sustain itself in the face of a severe economic downturn as well as competition that is more nimble, agile and able to withstand the recession (so far).
The Tribune is a massive company with legacy costs, systems and infrastructure that is struggling to sustain itself in the face of a severe economic downturn as well as competition that is more nimble, agile and able to withstand the recession (so far).
The Big Three are massive companies with legacy costs, systems and infrastructure that are struggling to sustain themselves in the face of a severe economic downturn as well as competition that is more nimble, agile and able to withstand the recession (so far) – but they (excepting Ford) are failing, and failing fast. (Update: read the first line of this story)
Take the argument down a level or a thousand –
If I fail – I can’t sell homes because buyers aren’t buying – am I deserving of a bailout? No. If “forces outside of my control” have forced me out of business, am I too big to fail? My family sure thinks so, but I don’t expect the government to prop me up whilst I keep trying the same old things or cobble together a half-baked plan to change my business strategies.
We need to rediscover our desire to succeed – and fail –
The greatest danger in the current economic crisis is that the United States will lose its historic appetite for risk. The mood now is that risk-taking got us into this mess. Risk, though, is the quintessential American trait that built the nation — from the Battle of Bunker Hill to the rise of the microchip. If we let risk give way to a new ethos of commercial reserve and regulatory restriction, the upward arc of the U.S. ascendancy will flatten. Maybe it already has.
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The current crisis is the result of a world gone madly long on real estate. Daniel Boone, the famed American frontiersman, went belly-up speculating on Kentucky land. He moved on in 1788 and paid his debts. So should we, without losing sight of the American frontier, where we discovered the rewards of risk.
A culture of dependency propagated by the government is not a recipe for success.
