In Search of Failure

You weren’t expecting that title to kick-off my first post for 2011 were you?  Funny thing, it’s the title of chapter seven in Frederick Reichheld’s book The Loyalty Effect (©1996).  In that chapter Reichheld points out that an investor who built a stock portfolio out of the companies profiled in the book In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman ©1982) would have seen their returns trounced by the mediocre performance of the S&P index during the ten year period following the books 1982 publication.  In fact, by time Reichheld’s book came out in 1996 only one-fifth of the original companies profiled as “excellent” had remained excellent.

If success breeds success, how in the world did those companies lose their lofty status?  In Reichheld’s opinion what really helps us to achieve excellence is actually the study of failure.  It’s not exactly in our nature to seek out failure though; in fact, your career is probably linked to success, which means that getting too close to failure may feel threatening.  However, most people will admit that mistakes are often better teachers than success.  In fact, quality assurance experts will attest that when one component fails, it can cast a spotlight on the workings of an entire program.

Berry Network did many things really well last year.  In fact, as you might guess, I’m extremely proud of my marketing organization for the all the work they do.  From developing detailed media plans to designing testing programs, from creating new ads to managing thousands of production ads, from analyzing call data to developing detailed custom reports, from writing client newsletters to managing RFP’s; our marketing organization impacts all areas of our business.  Simply put, it would be difficult to function without them.  So, does that mean there is no room for improvement?  Hardly, we’ll keep pressing forward with our brand transformation and look for ways to help our sales teams profitably grow our revenue.  As we kick-off 2011 we’ll celebrate our successes.  But we won’t be afraid to examine opportunities for improvement.