How do I prevent failure?

Irrespective of your position, experience age of the business, rank or climate the fear of failure is always very real for any individual involved with business.

We move forward toward our goals, ambitions and enterprising and industrious thoughts into a dark unknown. Whilst often doing more of the same gives us some protection from those terrors of failure even that is never a failsafe from failure – just ask behomoths of yesteryear like Blockbuster how well doing nothing or more of the same served them.

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”

—Richard Branson

While it is indeed true that one should not let your failures paralyse you and one should always get up and try again, ideally the more failures that are prevented without sacrificing industriousness and entrepreneurial flair, the better.

How then do I prevent failure?

There are some fundamental and basic business issues that will go a long way toward preventing failure:

• A detailed diagnostic evaluation of the current business climate
• Diagnosing any weakness or problems in the existing business that may spiral out of control upon any new venture or due to external factors.
• Simulate the future
  • It is not difficult to create a crystal ball of what the future holds with some data inputs
  • Stress testing your business against these future scenarios will show areas for potential failure
  • Understanding the sensitivity that the business has toward certain key parameters will ensure proper focus on the levers which, when little force is applied, can cause catastrophic failure.

It is cheaper to prevent failure than fixing the consequences of failure

I have spent the better part of quarter of century preventing such failures for large corporations in many countries as well as South Africa. It is a logical process which empowers clients to take control of their own fears.

#Fail2Fail