“How to Use Achieved Failure to Build a Stronger, Smarter Business”
1. Introduction: What is Achieved Failure?
Achieved failure isn’t about half-hearted attempts or giving up halfway. It’s about committing fully, giving your absolute best, and rigorously executing a plan—only to discover that the plan itself was fundamentally flawed. You did everything right, yet the outcome was all wrong. That’s achieved failure.
Think about it: you followed the steps, marshalled your resources, and saw the plan through to the end. But instead of success, you end up with a powerful lesson in what doesn’t work. Achieved failure proves one crucial thing—you’re capable of executing with focus, discipline, and precision, even if the strategy was flawed. And that ability is a cornerstone of long-term success.
Take the example of Blockbuster’s On-Demand Service. By the late 2000s, Blockbuster was competing with Netflix and realised it needed to pivot to digital. The company put its full weight behind a streaming service, even rigorously executing an advertising blitz to promote it. The execution was near-flawless. But the plan failed because it came too late.
Netflix already dominated the market, and Blockbuster hadn’t adjusted its pricing or service model to compete effectively. What Blockbuster learned, too late, was the importance of timing and customer-centric adaptation.
Or consider Kodak’s Digital Camera Division. Kodak was a pioneer in digital photography and even developed the first digital camera. It executed this innovation faithfully, spending millions on research and rollout. Yet the strategy focused on protecting its film business rather than embracing the shift to digital, which resulted in market irrelevance. The execution was brilliant—the plan itself was the problem.
As a business owner, you’ve probably experienced something similar. You invested time, effort, and resources into a project or campaign. You followed the plan to the letter, believing success was inevitable. But when the results came in, they were underwhelming—or worse, disastrous.
That’s achieved failure, and while it stings, it’s not the end of the road. It’s the beginning of deep learning.
The key is to recognise achieved failure for what it is: proof that you’re capable of executing with excellence. This shows that the flaw wasn’t in your discipline or ability but in the plan itself. And that’s something you can fix.
“Achieved failure is the first step toward smarter strategies, sharper decisions, and greater success.”
In this blog, you’ll learn why achieved failure is a vital part of business, how to embrace it, and how to turn it into your competitive advantage. Whether you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or entrepreneur, this shift in mindset will set you apart. After all, the best business owners aren’t the ones who avoid failure—they’re the ones who master it.
2. The Value of Flawless Execution of Flawed Plans.
There’s a hidden value in flawlessly executing a flawed plan: it teaches you more about your capabilities, your business, and your market than success ever could. When you faithfully and rigorously follow a plan to its conclusion, you get crystal-clear evidence about what works and what doesn’t—without the distractions of sloppy execution or half-baked effort muddying the waters.
Let’s break it down. Why does it matter to flawlessly execute a flawed plan?
1. It Proves Your Ability to Execute.
When you follow a plan rigorously, you demonstrate discipline, focus, and the ability to manage resources effectively. These are foundational skills for any successful entrepreneur. Achieved failure shows that your execution isn’t the problem—it’s the strategy. This distinction is critical because it allows you to isolate the issue and focus on improving the plan, not doubting your abilities.
For example, imagine you’ve planned a product launch. You hit every milestone—design, production, marketing, and sales rollout—exactly as planned. But after six months, sales numbers are dismal. The execution was perfect; the plan was flawed because it didn’t account for market demand. Now, you know the issue isn’t your team’s ability to deliver—it’s the need for better market research. That clarity is invaluable.
2. It Reveals Hidden Flaws in the Plan.
Executing a flawed plan perfectly exposes the cracks that would have been hidden by poor execution. When things fail, you know exactly where the problem lies. Maybe your marketing message didn’t resonate with your audience, your pricing wasn’t competitive, or your target market was too narrow. These insights only come when you take the plan seriously and see it through.
Consider Tesla’s early production of the Model S. Tesla executed the manufacturing and rollout of their luxury electric vehicle with incredible precision, but the early models faced significant battery reliability issues. This wasn’t a failure of production—it was a flaw in the design plan. By executing flawlessly, Tesla pinpointed the issue, resolved it, and ultimately established itself as a market leader. Without that achieved failure, they might never have improved to the level of dominance they enjoy today.
3. It Builds Credibility and Trust.
When you execute a plan rigorously—even if it fails—it shows stakeholders, employees, and customers that you’re serious about your commitments. This builds trust. People respect leaders who follow through, even when things don’t go as planned. Achieved failure demonstrates integrity, resilience, and a willingness to learn.
Think of Amazon’s Fire Phone. Amazon invested heavily in the phone’s development and marketing, executing the launch with precision. The product flopped, but Amazon’s reputation didn’t suffer. Why? Because they had built trust through their commitment to quality and execution, even in failure. This allowed them to pivot, refocus on their strengths, and launch the Echo and Alexa, which became massive successes.
4. It Strengthens Your Team.
When you rigorously execute a flawed plan, your team gains experience, builds resilience, and hone their skills. Even in failure, they learn how to work together under pressure, solve problems, and deliver results. This shared experience creates a stronger, more capable team that’s better equipped to tackle future challenges.
Key Takeaway.
Flawless execution of a flawed plan isn’t wasted effort—it’s a critical learning opportunity. It proves your ability to deliver, reveals the precise flaws in your strategy, and strengthens your credibility and team. Achieved failure is not the end; it’s the beginning of deeper insights and better decisions.
Instead of fearing flawed plans, embrace them. Execute them with focus and rigour, and let the results guide you to smarter strategies and, ultimately, greater success.
3. Why Flawed Plans Are Unavoidable.
No matter how much experience or foresight you have, flawed plans are inevitable. The business world is full of variables—many of them unpredictable. Markets shift, competitors evolve, customer preferences change, and technology disrupts. Even the most carefully crafted plans can turn out to be fundamentally flawed.
But here’s the truth: flawed plans aren’t a sign of incompetence—they’re a natural part of doing business. The key is to understand why they happen and to embrace them as opportunities to grow.
1. The Uncertainty of the Business Environment.
You operate in a world that’s constantly changing. Trends that seem reliable today can become irrelevant tomorrow. Customer behaviours evolve in ways no one can predict. Competitors innovate, regulations shift, and global events disrupt markets. The reality is that no plan can account for every variable.
Take Nokia’s Symbian Operating System. In the early 2000s, Nokia was a mobile phone giant. They planned meticulously to continue dominating the market, investing heavily in their Symbian OS. However, they failed to anticipate how quickly smartphones and app ecosystems would shift consumer demand. Their plan wasn’t careless—it was based on the best available data at the time. The flaw was their inability to adapt to rapid industry changes.
2. Assumptions Are Always Part of Planning.
Every plan you create is based on assumptions: about your market, your customers, your competitors, and your capabilities. Some of these assumptions will be accurate; others won’t. When one or more critical assumptions turn out to be wrong, the plan fails.
For example, Coca-Cola’s introduction of New Coke in the 1980s was based on the assumption that consumers wanted a sweeter cola. They conducted taste tests and gathered data to support this idea. But they didn’t account for the emotional connection customers had to the original Coke formula. The plan was executed perfectly, but the underlying assumption was flawed. The backlash taught Coca-Cola a critical lesson about customer loyalty.
3. Risk is Inherent in Innovation
If you’re innovating, you’re taking risks. And when you take risks, you will occasionally fail. Flawed plans are an inevitable byproduct of bold moves. The alternative is playing it safe, which might avoid failure but also guarantees mediocrity.
Consider Google Glass. Google invested heavily in the development and marketing of its augmented reality glasses. The product failed to gain traction due to design flaws, privacy concerns, and a lack of practical use cases. But this achieved failure wasn’t wasted. It provided insights into wearable technology and customer preferences, which have informed Google’s future innovations in AR and VR.
4. Flawed Plans are Part of Growth
The more you grow, the more complex your business becomes. You’re dealing with bigger markets, more competitors, and higher stakes. Flawed plans become unavoidable because the decisions you’re making involve greater complexity. However, each achieved failure provides you with the insights needed to navigate this complexity more effectively.
When Amazon launched its Auction platform in 1999, it aimed to compete with eBay. The plan was sound on paper, but it failed to attract enough sellers and buyers to make the marketplace competitive. Instead of giving up, Amazon analysed the failure, pivoted, and launched Amazon Marketplace—a massive success. Achieved failure was a stepping stone to understanding the e-commerce ecosystem better.
Key Takeaway.
Flawed plans are inevitable, but they’re also invaluable. They happen because of uncertainty, assumptions, the risks of innovation, and the complexity of growth. What matters isn’t avoiding flawed plans—it’s learning from them. Every achieved failure is a step closer to understanding your market, refining your strategies, and building resilience. Instead of fearing flawed plans, embrace them as an essential part of your journey to success.
4. Lessons from Achieved Failure.
Achieved failure isn’t just a setback—it’s a goldmine of lessons. When you execute a flawed plan with precision and discipline, you create the conditions for deep learning. You’re no longer guessing why things went wrong; you have clear evidence. This clarity allows you to grow, adapt, and improve in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Here are the key lessons you can take from achieved failure:
1. Validation of Effort.
Executing a flawed plan successfully proves that your team has the discipline, focus, and operational skills to deliver. This is a big win because it separates the issue of execution from the strategy itself.
Think of Apple’s Power Mac G4 Cube. Released in 2000, the Cube was a technical marvel, showcasing Apple’s ability to execute innovative design and engineering flawlessly. However, the product flopped due to its high price and limited market appeal. What Apple learned was that their execution was sound, but the product-market fit wasn’t there. This validation of their ability to execute allowed them to confidently move forward with future innovations, like the iMac and MacBook lines.
The lesson: Achieved failure proves that you have the operational muscle to deliver. The issue isn’t how you did it—it’s what you chose to do.
2. Clarity on Weaknesses.
The flawless execution of a flawed plan shines a spotlight on what’s broken. It removes the noise of poor effort, letting you see the real issues. These insights are invaluable because they allow you to focus your energy on fixing the right problems.
Take Netflix’s early attempt at streaming in 2007. The company executed its initial streaming rollout perfectly, but the infrastructure wasn’t ready, and the content library was too limited. The feedback was clear: customers loved the concept but needed more reliable delivery and better content options. Netflix took these lessons and invested heavily in licensing deals and streaming technology, leading to the global juggernaut we know today.
The lesson: Achieved failure gives you a crystal-clear view of what needs to change—whether it’s your product, your pricing, your messaging, or something else.
3. Building Resilience.
When you achieve failure, you prove to yourself and your team that you can handle setbacks. You’ve faced a challenge head-on, completed the plan, and come out the other side. This resilience is a critical asset in business because it builds confidence and determination.
Consider SpaceX’s early rocket launches. The first three launches of their Falcon 1 rocket failed despite flawless execution by their team. Instead of giving up, they analysed the failures, applied what they learned, and succeeded on the fourth launch. That success paved the way for SpaceX to become a leader in aerospace innovation. Without the resilience built through those early failures, SpaceX might never have achieved its vision.
The lesson: Achieved failure strengthens your ability to bounce back. It shows that setbacks are temporary and that persistence pays off.
4. A Stronger Culture of Learning.
Achieved failure creates a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth, not reasons for blame. This mindset encourages your team to take calculated risks, innovate, and continuously improve.
Look at Toyota’s production process. In the 1950s, Toyota rigorously executed its manufacturing plans but repeatedly encountered production bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Instead of hiding these failures, Toyota embraced them, developing the now-famous Toyota Production System (TPS). This system revolutionised manufacturing globally and set a new standard for efficiency and quality.
The lesson: Achieved failure fosters a growth mindset, turning your business into a learning organization where innovation thrives.
Key Takeaway.
The lessons from achieved failure are profound. It validates your ability to execute, reveals your weaknesses, builds resilience, and fosters a culture of learning. Each time you flawlessly execute a flawed plan, you’re one step closer to refining your strategies and achieving long-term success.
Don’t let achieved failure discourage you. Instead, embrace it as an opportunity to learn, adapt, and grow stronger. Success isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about mastering it.
5. The Art of Moving Beyond Achieved Failure.
Achieved failure isn’t the end of the road—it’s the beginning of a better one. When you’ve successfully, faithfully, and rigorously executed a plan that turned out to be flawed, you’ve already proven that you’re capable of disciplined action. Now, it’s time to take the next step: turning that failure into an opportunity for growth, improvement, and eventual success.
Here’s how you can systematically move beyond achieved failure and come out stronger.
1. Analyse: Break Down What Happened.
The first step in moving beyond achieved failure is conducting an honest, thorough analysis of what went wrong. This isn’t about assigning blame; it’s about uncovering the root cause of the failure.
Ask yourself and your team:
- What worked? Identify the elements of the plan that were executed effectively.
- What didn’t work? Pinpoint the flaws in the strategy, assumptions, or execution.
- Why did it fail? Dig deeper to uncover the specific reasons for the failure—was it market conditions, incorrect assumptions, or something else entirely?
For example, when Peloton expanded aggressively during the pandemic, its execution was flawless—marketing, production, and delivery were scaled up rapidly to meet demand. But post-pandemic, they were left with oversupply and dwindling demand because their plan didn’t account for a return to normalcy. The root cause wasn’t execution; it was an assumption about long-term customer behaviour.
Key takeaway: By analysing what went wrong, you transform failure into a roadmap for improvement.
2. Learn: Extract the Lessons.
Every achieved failure contains valuable lessons—if you’re willing to look for them. Use the insights from your analysis to refine your understanding of your business, market, and strategy.
For example:
- If a marketing campaign failed, what did you learn about your target audience? Did you misinterpret their needs or preferences?
- If a product launch flopped, what did you learn about the product-market fit? Was there a gap in your research or testing process?
Consider Ford’s launch of the Edsel in the 1950s. It’s often cited as one of the biggest product failures in history, but Ford learned key lessons about customer preferences, branding, and market research. Those lessons helped the company refine its approach and succeed with future vehicles.
Key takeaway: Each failure is a chance to learn something new. The more you extract, the more valuable the failure becomes.
3. Pivot: Use the Insights to Adjust.
Learning from failure isn’t enough—you need to act on what you’ve learned. Use the insights you’ve gained to pivot your strategy, refine your plans, and make better decisions going forward.
For example:
- If a product launch reveals a lack of demand, pivot by targeting a different audience or adapting the product to better meet customer needs.
- If a pricing strategy fails, test alternative models or gather feedback from your audience to find what works.
Look at Airbnb’s early days. The founders initially focused on renting out air mattresses in their apartment to conference attendees. This plan flopped, but the experience revealed an untapped market for unique, short-term rentals. They pivoted their strategy, and the rest is history.
Key takeaway: The insights from achieved failure are only valuable if you use them to adjust and improve.
4. Build a Resilient Mindset.
Moving beyond achieved failure requires resilience. It’s easy to let failure knock your confidence, but the most successful entrepreneurs see it as a stepping stone. Developing a growth mindset helps you embrace failure as part of the journey.
Practical tips for building resilience:
- Separate the plan from yourself. The plan failed, not you. Focus on what you can control—your ability to learn and adapt.
- Celebrate the effort. Acknowledge the discipline and hard work that went into executing the plan, even if the outcome wasn’t as expected.
- Keep perspective. Remember that every successful business has faced failures along the way.
Consider Walt Disney. His first animation company, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, went bankrupt. Instead of giving up, Disney used the lessons from that failure to refine his approach, eventually creating the Disney empire. Resilience turned his achieved failure into the foundation for global success.
Key takeaway: Resilience is your most powerful tool for turning failure into growth.
5. Share the Lessons.
One of the most overlooked steps in moving beyond achieved failure is sharing what you’ve learned. When you’re transparent about failure, you build trust with your team, customers, and even stakeholders.
For example:
- With your team: Sharing lessons helps them grow and creates a culture of continuous improvement.
- With customers: Admitting missteps and showing how you’re addressing them can build loyalty and credibility.
- With stakeholders: Demonstrating how you’ve learned and adapted reassures them that you’re moving in the right direction.
When Microsoft launched the Zune, it was intended to compete with the iPod but failed miserably due to poor marketing and a lack of differentiation. Instead of hiding the failure, Microsoft used the lessons to refine its approach to consumer electronics, eventually succeeding with the Xbox and Surface lines.
Key takeaway: Sharing your lessons amplifies the value of achieved failure by building trust and fostering collaboration.
Moving beyond achieved failure isn’t just about fixing what went wrong—it’s about growing stronger, smarter, and more adaptable. By analysing the failure, extracting lessons, pivoting with purpose, building resilience, and sharing your insights, you can turn any setback into a powerful stepping stone toward success.
Failure isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of something better. Embrace it, learn from it, and use it to fuel your next move. That’s how you move beyond achieved failure and build a business that thrives.
6. When Achieved Failure Becomes a Competitive Advantage.
Achieved failure might feel like a setback in the moment, but it can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. When you embrace the lessons from achieved failures and leverage them strategically, you can create advantages that your competitors can’t match. The businesses that master this art are the ones that come out on top.
Here’s how you can turn achieved failure into a competitive edge:
1. Unique Insights Into What Doesn’t Work.
When you rigorously execute a flawed plan, you uncover specific insights about what doesn’t work in your market, industry, or strategy. These insights are unique to you because they’re based on real-world experience. Your competitors might still be operating under flawed assumptions while you’ve already ruled them out.
Take IBM’s early foray into personal computers in the 1980s. IBM executed its PC strategy successfully, but the open architecture of its machines allowed competitors to clone their designs and undercut them on price. The failure gave IBM unique insights into the pitfalls of open systems and the importance of proprietary innovation, lessons they applied to future product strategies like the ThinkPad series.
Key takeaway: Your failures teach you things your competitors may not know yet. Use this knowledge to refine your strategies and get ahead.
2. Building a Culture of Resilience and Innovation.
Achieved failure builds resilience—not just in you but in your entire team. When your business survives a failure and emerges stronger, your team learns to embrace challenges, take risks, and think creatively. This culture of resilience and innovation is hard for competitors to replicate.
For example, Elon Musk’s SpaceX faced multiple failed rocket launches in its early days. Instead of seeing these failures as the end, Musk used them to foster a culture of relentless innovation. Today, SpaceX’s ability to adapt and improve after failure has made it a leader in the aerospace industry.
Key takeaway: A culture that embraces achieved failure is more innovative, adaptable, and prepared for future challenges than competitors stuck in a fear-of-failure mindset.
3. Earning Customer Trust Through Transparency.
When you’re open about your failures and how you’ve learned from them, you build trust and credibility with your customers. People respect businesses that take accountability and show they’re committed to improving. This transparency sets you apart from competitors who might hide or ignore their mistakes.
Consider Domino’s Pizza’s bold transparency campaign. After customer feedback revealed dissatisfaction with their product, Domino’s launched a marketing campaign admitting their failures and showcasing their efforts to improve. This honesty earned them customer trust, rejuvenated their brand, and gave them a significant competitive edge in the crowded fast-food market.
Key takeaway: Owning your failures and demonstrating how you’re addressing them can win customer loyalty and set you apart from competitors who aren’t as open.
4. Innovating Faster Than Competitors.
Achieved failure, when handled correctly, speeds up your innovation cycle. While your competitors might be cautiously avoiding risk, you’re learning, iterating, and improving at a faster pace. Each failure gives you actionable insights that help you refine your approach and get to market more effectively.
Take Amazon’s failure with the Fire Phone. While the product flopped, Amazon used the lessons from that experience to innovate faster with the Echo and Alexa. The same team that failed with the Fire Phone applied what they learned about hardware, customer preferences, and ecosystems to create a revolutionary product category. Meanwhile, competitors were left playing catch-up.
Key takeaway: Achieved failure gives you the agility to innovate faster and smarter than businesses that avoid risk.
5. Creating Differentiation in the Market.
Failures often reveal opportunities to differentiate yourself in ways you hadn’t considered before. By analysing what went wrong, you can identify gaps in the market, unmet customer needs, or unique value propositions that set you apart.
For example, Slack’s origins as a failed gaming company taught its founders about the importance of effective team communication. When their game flopped, they pivoted to focus on the internal communication tool they’d developed for their team, turning it into one of the most successful business software products in the world.
Key takeaway: The insights from achieved failure can lead you to discover untapped opportunities and unique ways to stand out in your industry.
6. Strengthening Long-Term Competitive Position.
Achieved failure builds resilience, fosters innovation, and provides insights that compound over time. Each failure you navigate successfully makes your business stronger, your team smarter, and your strategies sharper. Over time, this positions you as a formidable competitor in your market.
Look at Toyota’s rise to global dominance. Early on, Toyota faced numerous achieved failures in its production processes. However, by embracing these failures and learning from them, the company developed the Toyota Production System, which gave them a competitive advantage in efficiency and quality. This long-term approach turned early failures into lasting dominance.
Key takeaway: The lessons from achieved failure don’t just help in the short term—they create a foundation for long-term success.
Key Takeaway.
Achieved failure isn’t just a setback—it’s a competitive advantage waiting to be unlocked. By leveraging the unique insights, resilience, innovation, and transparency that come from achieved failures, you can outpace competitors, earn customer trust, and create long-term differentiation in your market.
Failure is inevitable, but how you respond to it sets you apart. Use your achieved failures as stepping stones to build a stronger, smarter, and more competitive business. That’s how you turn setbacks into advantages and rise to the top.
7. Practical Steps to Handle Achieved Failure.
Achieved failure is inevitable in business, but how you respond to it determines whether it becomes a stepping stone to success or a roadblock. Handling achieved failure effectively requires a structured approach that ensures you extract maximum value from the experience while minimising the emotional and financial impact.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to handling achieved failure like a pro:
1. Faithfully Execute Every Plan.
The first step to handling achieved failure is ensuring you execute your plan with discipline and focus. This might seem obvious, but many businesses allow doubts or distractions to undermine their efforts. Flawless execution ensures that if the plan fails, the failure is due to the strategy itself—not a lack of effort or follow-through.
For example:
- If you’re launching a new product, commit fully to the timeline, marketing strategy, and production process.
- If you’re testing a new sales approach, follow the playbook consistently and measure results accurately.
Why it matters: Half-hearted execution clouds the results and leaves you wondering whether the failure was due to the plan or poor follow-through. Commit fully so that your analysis will be clean and actionable.
2. Set Aside Time for Post-Mortem Analysis.
When a plan fails, it’s tempting to move on quickly and focus on the next thing. Resist that urge. A post-mortem analysis is crucial for understanding what went wrong and how you can improve.
Steps to conduct a post-mortem:
- Gather your team: Involve everyone who played a role in the plan’s execution. Their perspectives are invaluable.
- Ask structured questions: What worked? What didn’t? What assumptions turned out to be incorrect?
- Use data: Avoid speculation. Look at metrics, customer feedback, and any other hard data to inform your conclusions.
For instance, when Coca-Cola introduced New Coke, the company conducted extensive post-mortem analysis after its failure. They discovered that while taste tests favoured the new formula, they underestimated the emotional attachment customers had to the original Coke. This insight helped them reposition their brand effectively.
Why it matters: Without structured analysis, you risk repeating the same mistakes.
3. Focus on the Lessons, Not the Blame.
It’s easy to fall into a blame game when things go wrong. But focusing on blame distracts from the real goal: learning and improvement. Instead, create a culture where failure is treated as an opportunity to grow.
Here’s how to do it:
- Frame failure as a team effort: Everyone involved contributed to the outcome, for better or worse.
- Encourage transparency: Reward team members for sharing insights and admitting mistakes without fear of punishment.
- Turn lessons into action points: Identify specific steps to avoid similar failures in the future.
Consider Google’s failure with Google Wave. Instead of blaming individuals for its lack of adoption, Google used the experience to identify issues with user engagement and market readiness. These lessons were applied to future projects, like Google Drive and Google Docs.
Why it matters: A focus on learning rather than blame fosters innovation and continuous improvement.
4. Document and Share the Insights.
Once you’ve analysed the failure and extracted lessons, don’t let them disappear into the ether. Documenting your findings ensures they’re accessible for future reference and helps prevent repeating the same mistakes.
Best practices for documenting insights:
- Create a “lessons learned” document summarising key findings.
- Store it in a shared knowledge base or project management tool.
- Use it to inform future planning and decision-making processes.
For example, NASA rigorously documents its failures, from minor glitches to major disasters like the Challenger tragedy. These records have helped shape safety protocols and improve mission success rates over the decades.
Why it matters: Documenting your insights institutionalizes learning, ensuring the entire organisation benefits from the experience.
5. Take Action to Pivot and Improve.
Analysis and learning are only useful if they lead to action. Use what you’ve learned to pivot, refine your strategy, and improve your plans moving forward.
Steps to pivot effectively:
- Prioritise changes: Focus on the most impactful lessons first. For example, if your pricing strategy was flawed, address that before refining marketing.
- Test again: Don’t assume your new plan will be perfect—run small, controlled experiments to validate changes.
- Commit to continuous improvement: View each iteration as a step toward a more effective strategy.
For example, when PayPal initially launched, it struggled with fraud and customer dissatisfaction. Instead of scrapping the idea, the company used the experience to refine its fraud detection systems and user experience, eventually becoming the dominant player in online payments.
Why it matters: Taking action ensures that failure leads to progress, not stagnation.
6. Build a Failure-Resilient Mindset.
Handling achieved failure effectively requires mental toughness. You’ll face criticism, self-doubt, and pressure to succeed, but developing resilience will help you stay focused on growth.
Tips for building resilience:
- Separate failure from identity: The plan failed, not you. Keep your self-worth separate from the outcome.
- Celebrate effort, not just results: Recognise the work you and your team put into the plan, even if it didn’t succeed.
- Find the silver lining: Every failure teaches you something valuable. Focus on what you’ve gained, not just what you’ve lost.
Consider how J.K. Rowling handled failure. Rejected by multiple publishers, she used the experience to refine her pitch and persevere. That resilience eventually led to the global success of the Harry Potter series.
Why it matters: A resilient mindset turns failure into fuel for growth.
7. Make Achieved Failure Part of Your Culture.
The most successful organisations embrace failure as a natural part of innovation. They encourage experimentation, accept setbacks, and focus on learning.
Ways to foster a culture of achieved failure:
- Celebrate lessons learned: Highlight what the team gained from the failure, not just the fact that it happened.
- Encourage calculated risks: Support team members who take bold but thoughtful actions.
- Reward transparency: Create an environment where admitting failure is seen as a strength, not a weakness.
For example, Amazon famously embraces failure as part of its culture. Jeff Bezos has repeatedly stated that the company’s willingness to take risks and learn from failures, like the Fire Phone, is what drives its long-term success.
Why it matters: A culture of achieved failure turns setbacks into stepping stones for future wins.
Key Takeaway.
Handling achieved failure isn’t about avoiding mistakes—it’s about learning, adapting, and growing stronger with every setback. By executing faithfully, analysing thoroughly, sharing insights, and fostering resilience, you turn failure into one of your greatest assets.
Don’t fear achieved failure—master it. Use it to refine your strategies, strengthen your team, and build a culture of continuous improvement. That’s how you turn setbacks into successes and position yourself for long-term success.
8. Embracing the Flaws in Every Plan.
Achieved failure is an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey, but it’s also one of the most valuable. The very act of successfully, faithfully, and rigorously executing a flawed plan teaches you lessons that can’t be learned any other way. These experiences test your discipline, reveal blind spots, and ultimately help you grow into a sharper, more capable business owner.
The real challenge isn’t avoiding flawed plans—it’s how you handle them. Will you let them paralyze you with doubt, or will you use them as stepping stones to greater success? By embracing achieved failure, you’re positioning yourself to build a business that’s resilient, innovative, and primed for long-term growth.
1. Success Isn’t Linear.
Success doesn’t follow a straight path—it’s a series of experiments, adjustments, and breakthroughs. Achieved failure is part of that process. Each flawed plan executed with precision moves you closer to the strategies and systems that will work. Think of it as paying your dues in the school of entrepreneurship.
For example, Steve Jobs’ return to Apple in the late 1990s wasn’t an instant success. His initial strategy, including the launch of the colourful iMac, faced scepticism. But the lessons learned from those early moves laid the foundation for Apple’s eventual dominance with the iPod, iPhone, and beyond.
Key takeaway: Success is built on the back of achieved failures that push you to refine your approach.
2. Perfection Isn’t the Goal—Progress Is.
Entrepreneurs often fall into the trap of seeking the “perfect plan.” But the truth is, no plan is flawless. Achieved failure reminds you that progress is more important than perfection. It’s better to act, learn, and adapt than to wait for ideal conditions that may never come.
Consider Tesla’s early struggles. Elon Musk’s vision for electric vehicles faced setbacks with production, battery technology, and market scepticism. Yet, by taking action and learning from each failure, Tesla transformed the automotive industry.
Key takeaway: Progress comes from taking imperfect action, learning from the results, and moving forward smarter.
3. Confidence Comes From Mastering Failure.
Achieved failure builds confidence—not by avoiding mistakes, but by showing you that you can handle them. Each time you recover from a flawed plan, you reinforce your ability to learn, adapt, and thrive. This resilience is what separates successful entrepreneurs from those who give up too soon.
For example, Colonel Sanders faced countless rejections before finally franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken. Each failed pitch taught him how to refine his message and improve his product. By the time he succeeded, his resilience and confidence were unshakable.
Key takeaway: Confidence isn’t about never failing—it’s about knowing you can rise stronger every time you do.
Final Thought: Success Through Mastery of Failure
Achieved failure isn’t something to fear—it’s something to embrace. The most successful entrepreneurs understand that every flawed plan, every setback, and every misstep is a valuable part of the journey. By faithfully executing, learning from the results, and adapting with purpose, you’re building the foundation for a stronger, smarter, and more resilient business.
So, go ahead—make bold plans, execute them with rigour, and embrace the flaws when they reveal themselves. Success doesn’t come from avoiding failure; it comes from mastering it.
The 365/90 Framework: Preventing and Learning from Achieved Failures.
Achieved failure is a valuable teacher, but wouldn’t it be better to minimise the risk of flawed plans in the first place? That’s where the 365/90 business planning framework comes in. It’s a system designed to help you avoid common pitfalls, spot potential flaws early, and, most importantly, learn from every outcome—whether it’s a success or failure.
The 365/90 framework works by breaking your planning into short, actionable cycles, giving you the agility to test, adjust, and pivot without losing momentum. Let’s explore how this approach can help you prevent and learn from achieved failures.
1. Breaking Plans Into Manageable Cycles.
Instead of committing to long, inflexible plans, the 365/90 framework encourages you to plan in 90-day sprints. These shorter cycles make it easier to test assumptions, evaluate results, and course-correct if necessary.
For example, let’s say you’re launching a new marketing campaign. With a traditional approach, you might plan for a full year, invest heavily upfront, and wait months to evaluate success. If the plan is flawed, you’ve wasted valuable time and resources.
With the 365/90 framework, you’d break the campaign into 90-day cycles. You’d test one or two key strategies in the first quarter, analyse the results, and refine your approach for the next cycle. This way, you minimise the impact of flawed assumptions and maximise your ability to adapt.
How it prevents achieved failure: Short cycles give you the opportunity to spot flaws early, reducing the risk of committing to a plan that doesn’t work.
2. Building Reflection Into the Process.
The 365/90 framework emphasises regular reflection and analysis. At the end of each 90-day cycle, you review what worked, what didn’t, and why. This step ensures that every plan—whether successful or flawed—becomes a source of learning.
For instance, imagine you’ve spent the last 90 days developing a new product feature. You launched it with high hopes, only to find that customers didn’t respond as expected. By building reflection into your process, you don’t simply move on—you analyse the feedback, identify the flaw (perhaps the feature didn’t address a real pain point), and use that insight to guide your next steps.
How it prevents achieved failure: Reflection allows you to systematically learn from every outcome, turning failures into actionable insights.
3. Encouraging Experimentation Without Catastrophic Risk.
One of the greatest strengths of the 365/90 framework is its ability to support calculated experimentation. By focusing on short-term goals and measurable results, you can take risks without betting everything on a single plan.
For example, if you’re considering expanding into a new market, you don’t need to commit fully right away. Instead, you can dedicate one 90-day cycle to testing the waters—running pilot campaigns, gathering data, and learning about the market. If the plan turns out to be flawed, the impact is limited, and you’ve gained valuable insights for your next move.
How it prevents achieved failure: Experimentation in controlled cycles allows you to test ideas without overcommitting, reducing the likelihood of large-scale failures.
4. Promoting Agility and Adaptability.
The 365/90 framework is designed for flexibility. If you identify a flaw during a cycle, you can pivot quickly without derailing your overall goals. This adaptability is crucial in today’s fast-paced business environment, where conditions can change in an instant.
Consider a small business that starts a 90-day cycle with a focus on social media advertising. Midway through, they realise that their target audience isn’t responding on those platforms. Instead of pushing forward with a flawed plan, they can pivot to other channels, such as email marketing or partnerships, for the remainder of the cycle.
How it prevents achieved failure: Agility allows you to respond to real-time feedback and make changes before a plan completely fails.
5. Learning From Achieved Failure.
Even with the best planning, some achieved failures will happen. The 365/90 framework ensures that these failures aren’t wasted by providing a structured process for learning and improvement.
At the end of a cycle, you ask:
- What went well? Identify the aspects of the plan that were executed effectively.
- What didn’t work? Pinpoint the flaws in strategy, assumptions, or execution.
- What’s the next step? Use the insights gained to adjust your next 90-day plan.
For example, if a new pricing model fails to attract customers during a 90-day cycle, the team can analyse the results, consult customer feedback, and refine the pricing structure for the next iteration.
How it turns failure into learning: By consistently reflecting and iterating, you transform achieved failures into stepping stones for smarter strategies.
Key Takeaway.
The 365/90 framework is your best defence against the risks of flawed plans. By breaking your goals into manageable cycles, encouraging reflection, and building agility into your process, you minimise the likelihood of large-scale achieved failures. And when failures do happen, you’re equipped to learn from them and move forward stronger.
Use the 365/90 process to approach planning with confidence, knowing that even flawed plans can become valuable lessons when executed with discipline and followed by reflection. Success isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about mastering it, one cycle at a time.
Your Next Step:
Call-to-Action: Book a 365/90 Discovery Call.
Now that you understand the value of achieved failure, it’s time to take the next step. The 365/90 business planning process is designed to help you navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship with focus, clarity, and purpose. This system allows you to break your goals into manageable cycles, reflect on results, and adapt your plans to turn every achieved failure into a stepping stone toward success.
Start by booking a 365/90 Discovery Call. In this call, we’ll:
- Analyse your current challenges: Identify what’s holding you back and where your plans may need adjustment.
- Discuss your goals: Clarify your vision and break it into actionable 90-day cycles.
- Create a path forward: Develop a plan to help you make progress, minimise risk, and learn from every outcome.
This call is your opportunity to get expert guidance and learn how to apply the 365/90 framework to your business. Whether you’re looking to recover from a recent failure or set yourself up for future success, the 365/90 Discovery Call is the first step to building a smarter, stronger business.