Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

We need to fail faster.   

At a graduation ceremony for a year-long leadership program, one of the speakers talked to us about failure. She recounted a story by the chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble, the makers of Tide, Ivory, Pampers, and dozens of other household items.   

At this Fortune 500 company, 85 percent of new products they develop fail. Eighty-five percent. Isn’t that an astonishing number? Can you imagine if you failed four out of five times in your life? If you only hit the ball once every five times? If your kids brought home passing grades only 15 percent of the time?   

The fail-percentage is striking, but the real takeaway for me was the follow-up. Failure cannot be avoided, especially if we are moving in new and uncharted territory. What’s important, the CEO said, is that we learn to fail faster.   

I think sometimes in our lives and in our churches, we beat the proverbial dead horse. We’ve invested too much time or money into something, and we’re unwilling to pull the plug, even it’s clearly not working.   

One of my personal goals is to fail sometimes. I figure if I never fail, then I’m not stretching enough, not taking enough risks. I plan to add to this a commitment to fail faster, a willingness to set aside a project or program – even if, and especially when, I personally love it.   

How could it change the conversation in vestry meetings if we added to each agenda the question: Where are we failing? How might we fail faster? What can we stop doing so we can start something else?