Michael Carey: Taking the positives from getting fired

An aphorism from Samuel Beckett's novella Worstward Ho has become a powerful motto of the entrepreneurial community, a motivational slogan that embraces and celebrates failure: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Failure is obviously not something that is sought, and a tolerance of failure does not in any way reduce entrepreneurs’ obsessive drive for success. Nevertheless, it has become clear that an excessive aversion to failure, and a witch-hunt against those who have tried and failed, will result in missed opportunities for future wealth and job creation.

Various Irish business groups have called for support programmes for failed entrepreneurs, providing encouragement and financial support for a second chance, to build upon the foundation of experience in earlier enterprises. Banks and other sources of funding need to think differently about business leaders that have failed on their first attempt.

Second chances

A reported increase in positive attitudes relating to such “second chances” might, according to the OECD, have been reinforced by the recent financial crisis, some people having become more sympathetic towards difficulties faced by entrepreneurs. However, Irish society still seems to struggle with the idea of business failure, while in the United States such failure is almost a badge of honour.

In my own career, initially working for multinational food businesses and now as an entrepreneur and investor in start-ups, I’ve experienced a number of setbacks and failures. Despite the emotional turmoil at the time, in hindsight these events have mostly led to an eventual positive outcome.

In 2001 I was employed as managing director of Kellogg's UK and Ireland, for a brief period of just eight months that ended in failure. I didn't fit in well at Kellogg's, I found the structures and processes of that highly successful multinational group to be very different to other businesses I had managed; my way of managing was not the "Kellogg way".

They quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn’t working and I was fired. That event, at the age of 39, ended my 20-year career working for multinational food groups; that phase of my career ended in unambiguous failure. However, Kellogg’s handled my unfortunate departure as professionally as they carry out all their processes and they were very generous. I can now look back and advise that if you must get fired in your career, I can highly recommend getting fired by Kellogg’s. I left with a settlement of about a year’s salary.

That cheque became an opportunity to make the leap into entrepreneurship and to invest, as majority shareholder, in the establishment of a business that became known as the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group. Thankfully that investment provided a good financial return, and led to a subsequent series of further investments and start-ups.

Since leaving Kellogg’s I have been involved in about a dozen start-ups. Some have been successful, a few have been utter failures. Those failures were loaded with lesson learned, and have helped me make better investment decisions. I have no doubt that other future investments or start-ups will also fail; hopefully the cost of those failures will be more than offset by the profitable successes.

Crucial element

Failure gets a bad press. Obviously it is not an outcome that anyone sets out to achieve. But acceptance of failure is a crucial element of the culture of successful organisations. Any business that experiences no failure is not taking a sufficient number of risks or big enough risks. Some of the innovations, the new ventures, the new products that such risk-averse businesses rejected, are likely to have been successful had they progressed, although we will never know.

In general, failure of entrepreneurial activity is high. Forbes recently reported that 90 per cent of start-ups will end in failure, a cold statistic that scares off most aspiring entrepreneurs and their bankers.

We don’t often hear details of the new businesses that fail, success stories are more likely to get ongoing media coverage and acclaim in award schemes. Talking about failure can be useful. For the past few years in the US, and more recently here in Ireland, start-up wakes have become popular; where the reasons for failure can be openly discussed in a supportive environment, providing resilient entrepreneurs with a strengthened mindset to bounce back from a botched business.

Most new business start-ups would not see the light of day if the entrepreneur’s driving force was to avoid failure. A fear of failure is probably the single biggest barrier to increasing the rate of start-ups in Ireland. If an entrepreneur looks too closely at the reported dire 10 per cent success rate of new business start-ups, they would probably never take on the risk of loss of money and reputation.

Failure is nevertheless a wonderful educational process, increasing the success rates of future new ventures. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.