讲堂｜愈败愈战固可嘉，谨慎失败更重要
(Credit: Thrive Global)
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We celebrate bold entrepreneurs whose ingenuity led them to success, but what happens to those who fail? Far too often, they bury their stories out of shame or humiliation — and miss out on a valuable opportunity for growth, says author and entrepreneur Leticia Gasca. In this thoughtful talk, Gasca calls for business owners to open up about their failures and makes the case for replacing the idea of "failing fast" with a new mantra: fail mindfully.
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Don't Fail Fast, Fail Mindfully
避免速败，要慎败
If we traveled back to the year 800 BC, in Greece, we would see that merchants whose businesses failed were forced to sit in the marketplace with a basket over their heads. In premodern Italy, failed business owners, who had outstanding debts, were taken totally naked to the public square where they had to bang their butts against a special stone while a crowd jeered at them. In the 17th century in France, failed business owners were taken to the center of the market, where the beginning of their bankruptcy was publicly announced. And in order to avoid immediate imprisonment, they had to wear a green bonnet so that everyone knew they were a failure. Of course, these are extreme examples. But it is important to remember that when we excessively punish those who fail, we stifle innovation and business creation, the engines of economic growth in any country.
如果我们穿越到公元前800年的希腊，我们会看到经营生意失败的商人被迫坐在市场上，用篮子扣住头。在前现代意大利，破产企业主若有未偿还的债务，会被赤条条地带到公共广场，用一块特殊的石头打自己的屁股，同时还有一群嘲笑他们的围观群众。在17世纪的法国，失败的企业主被带到市场的中央，在那里，他们破产的消息会被当众宣读。为了避免当场被捕，他们必须戴上一顶绿色的帽子，这样一来，每个人就都会知道他们是失败者。当然，这都是些极端的例子。不过请记住，当我们过度惩罚那些失败的人时，我们也在扼杀创新力和商业创造力，而这些能力是每个国家经济成长的引擎。
Time has passed, and today we don't publicly humiliate failed entrepreneurs. And they don't broadcast their failures on social media. In fact, I think that all of us can relate with the pain of failure. But we don't share the details of those experiences. And I totally get it, my friends, I have also been there. I had a business that failed and sharing that story was incredibly hard. In fact, it required seven years, a good dose of vulnerability and the company of my friends. This is my failure story:
时光飞逝，今天我们已经不会公开羞辱失败的企业家了。他们也不会在社交媒体上宣扬自己失败的惨痛经历。事实上，我认为我们所有人都体会过失败的痛苦，但我们并不愿意分享那些经历的个中细节。我完全明白，因为我也陷入过那样的境地。我有过生意失败的经验，而且分享失败的故事真的很难。事实上，它花了我长达7年的时间，强烈的脆弱感，还有我朋友们的陪伴。我失败的故事，是这样的：
When I was in college, studying business, I met a group of indigenous women. They lived in a poor rural community in the state of Puebla, in central Mexico. They made beautiful handmade products. And when I met them and I saw their work, I decided I wanted to help. With some friends, I cofounded a social enterprise with the mission to help the women create an income stream and improve their quality of life. We did everything by the book, as we had learned in business school. We got investors, we spent a lot of time building the business and training the women. But soon we realized we were novices. The handmade products were not selling, and the financial plan we had made was totally unrealistic. In fact, we worked for years without a salary, hoping that a miracle would happen, that magically a great buyer would arrive and she would make the business profitable. But that miracle never happened.
还在大学商学院学习时，我遇到一群原住民妇女。她们住在墨西哥中部普埃布拉州一个贫穷的农村社区。她们会制作漂亮的手工产品。当我遇到她们并且看到她们的作品时，我就决定要帮助她们。怀揣着帮助这些女性获取稳定收入及提升生活质量的使命，我与几位朋友共同创立了一个企业。我们一直按照商学院里学到的知识照本宣科，接着我们有了投资人，而后我们花了很多时间来建立企业和培训这些女性。但很快我们意识到——我们只是菜鸟。手工艺品根本卖不动，我们做的财务计划也完全不现实。事实上，我们赔本赚吆喝地经营了几年，希望奇迹会发生，有个大买家会奇迹般地出现，让整个企业盈利。但那个奇迹从未发生。
In the end, we had to close the business, and that broke my heart. I started everything to create a positive impact on the life of the artisans. And I felt that I have done the opposite. I felt so guilty that I decided to hide this failure from my conversations and my resume for years. I didn't know other failed entrepreneurs, and I thought I was the only loser in the world. One night, seven years later, I was out with some friends and we were talking about the life of the entrepreneur. And of course, the issue of failure came out. I decided to confess to my friends the story of my failed business. And they shared similar stories. In that moment, a thought became really clear in my mind: all of my friends were failures.
最终，我们不得不关闭公司，这让我十分痛心。我开始这段事业，是为了给艺术家的生活创造积极的影响。但我感到，整个事情的发展却事与愿违。我感到内疚，于是决定在接下来几年的交谈和简历中对这次失败闭口不提。我不认识其他失败的企业家，当时只觉得我是世界上唯一的失败者。7年之后的一个晚上，我跟朋友一起出去游玩时谈到了企业家的生活。自然而然地，我们聊到了失败的话题。我决定向朋友坦白曾经创业失败的经历。而她们则分享了类似的故事。在那一刻，我的脑海中清晰地出现了这样一个念头：我所有的朋友都是失败者。
Being more serious, that night I realized that A: I wasn't the only loser in the world, and B: we all have hidden failures. Please tell me if that is not true. That night was like an exorcism for me. I realized that sharing your failures makes you stronger, not weaker. And being open to my vulnerability helped me connect with others in a deeper and more meaningful way and embrace life lessons I wouldn't have learned previously. As a consequence of this experience of sharing stories of businesses that didn't work, we decided to create a platform of events to help others share their failure stories. And we called it Failing Nights. Years later, we also created a research center devoted to the story of failure and its implications on business, people and society and as we love cool names, we called it the Failure Institute. It has been surprising to see that when an entrepreneur stands on a stage and shares a story of failure, she can actually enjoy that experience. It doesn't have to be a moment of shame and embarrassment, as it used to be in the past. It is an opportunity to share lessons learned and build empathy. We have also discovered that when the members of a team share their failures, magic happens. Bonds grow stronger and collaboration becomes easier.
严肃地说，那晚我意识到：首先，我不是世界上唯一的失败者；第二，我们全都在隐藏自己的失败。如果有谁没这么做过，请一定要告诉我。那个晚上对我来说， 就如同一场驱魔活动。我意识到分享你的失败可以让你更强大，而不是更脆弱。坦然面对自己的脆弱，帮助我与其他人建立了更深、更有意义的连接， 并拥抱过去无法学到的生活教训。分享我们失败的商业故事使我们萌生出一个想法——创建一个用来帮助别人分享他们失败故事的平台。我们给这个平台命名为“搞砸之夜”。几年后，我们又创建了一个研究中心，聚焦失败故事，以及它对商业、人类和社会的启示作用。由于我们喜欢比较酷的名字，于是称之为“搞砸研究所”。令人惊讶的是，当企业家站在舞台上分享他们失败的故事时， 他们竟能够享受这种体验，而不像过去是象征着羞耻和尴尬的时刻。这是一个分享经验教训和构建同理心的机会。我们还发现，当团队成员分享她们的失败时，奇迹发生了——成员间的纽带增强了，协作变得更容易了。
Through our events and research projects, we have found some interesting facts. For instance, that men and women react in a different way after the failure of a business. The most common reaction among men is to start a new business within one year of failure, but in a different sector, while women decide to look for a job and postpone the creation of a new business. Our hypothesis is that this happens because women tend to suffer more from the impostor syndrome. We feel that we need something else to be a good entrepreneur. But I have seen that in many, many cases women have everything that's needed. We just need to take the step. And in the case of men, it is more common to see that they feel they have enough knowledge and just need to put it in practice in another place with better luck. Another interesting finding has been that there are regional differences on how entrepreneurs cope with failure. For instance, the most common reaction after the failure of a business in the American continent is to go back to school. While in Europe, the most common reaction is to look for a therapist.
通过我们的活动和研究项目，我们发现了一些有趣的事实。比如，男人和女人生意失败后的反应不一样：男性最常见的反应是在失败后一年内再次开始新的业务，只是会选择一个全新的行当；而女性则决定找份工作，并暂时搁置新创业计划。我们对此的猜测是，女性更容易受到“冒牌者症候群”的折磨，女性总觉得若是想要成为好的企业家，似乎还差些什么。但在很多案例中，女性其实已经具备了所需要的一切品质，我们只是需要多迈出一步。而在男性案例中， 更普遍的情况是，他们觉得自己已经拥有了足够的知识，只是在等待一个更好的机会。另一个有趣的发现是，企业家如何应对失败表现出了地域上的差别：比如，在美洲大陆，生意失败后人们最常见反应是回归学校；而在欧洲，人们更愿意去找个治疗师。
We're not sure which is a better reaction after the failure of a business, but this is something we will study in the future. Another interesting finding has been the profound impact that public policy has on failed entrepreneurs. For instance, in my country, in Mexico, the regulatory environment is so hard, that closing a business can take you a lot of time and a lot of money. Let's begin with the money. In the best possible scenario, meaning you don't have problems with partners, providers, clients, employees, in the best possible scenario, officially closing a business will cost you 2,000 dollars. Which is a lot of money in Mexico. Someone who earns the minimum wage would have to work for 15 months to save this amount. Now, let's talk about the time. As you may know, in most of the developing world, the average life expectancy of a business is two years. In Mexico, the process of officially closing a business takes two years. What happens when the average life expectancy of a business is so similar to the time it will take you to close it if it doesn't work? Of course, this discourages business creation and promotes informal economy.
我们不确定面对生意上的失败究竟哪种反应更好，但这将是我以后会仔细研究的课题。另一个有趣的发现是，针对失败企业家的公共政策带来深远影响。例如，在我的国家，墨西哥，监管环境苛刻，关闭一家公司需要花费大量的时间和金钱。我们先说说金钱。在最好的情况下，意味着你跟伙伴、供应商、客户、员工没有纠纷，正式关闭一家公司需要花费2000美元。在墨西哥，这个数目可不算小。一个赚最低工资的人工作15个月才能存够这笔钱。现在，我们再来说说时间。你可能知道在多数发展中国家， 企业的平均预期寿命是2年。在墨西哥，正式关闭一家企业也需要2年时间。当企业的平均预期寿命跟关掉它的时间一样长时，会发生什么？显然，这无法鼓励企业创新，反而会促进非正规生意。
In fact, econometric research has proved that if the process of declaring bankruptcy takes less time and less money, more new firms will enter the market. For this reason, in 2017, we proposed a series of public policy recommendations for the procedure of officially closing businesses in Mexico. For a whole year, we worked with entrepreneurs from all over the country and with Congress. And the good news is that we managed to help change the law. Yay!
事实上，计量经济学研究证明，如果宣布破产的过程需要更少的时间和资金，更多的新公司将进入市场。出于这个原因，2017年，我们为墨西哥正式关闭企业的程序提出了一系列公共政策建议。在一整年里，我们与来自全国各地的企业家和国会合作。而好消息是，我们成功地帮助改变了法律。耶!
On the night we invented Failling Nights, we never imagined that the movement would grow this big. We are in 80 countries now. In that moment, our only intention was to put the topic of failure on the table. To help our friends see that failure is something we must talk about. It is not a cause of humiliation, as it used to be in the past, or a cause of celebration, as some people say. In fact, I want to confess something. Every time I listen to Silicon Valley types or students bragging about failing fast and often like it's no big deal, I cringe. Because I think that there is a dark side on the mantra "fail fast." Of course, failing fast is a great way to accelerate learning and avoid wasting time. But I fear that when we present rapid failure to entrepreneurs as their one and only option, we might be promoting laziness. We might be promoting that entrepreneurs give up too easily. I also fear that the culture of rapid failure could be minimizing the devastating consequences of the failure of a business. For instance, when my social enterprise died, the worst part was that I had to go back to the indigenous community and tell the women that the business had failed and it was my fault. For some people this could be seen like a great learning opportunity for me, but the truth is that the closure of this business represented much more than that. It meant that the women would stop receiving an income that they really needed.
在我们创建"搞砸之夜"时，我们从来没想到这场运动会发展到如此大的规模。我们的业务已经开展到80个国家。创立之初，我们唯一的目的就是把失败的话题放到桌面，帮助我的朋友认识到， 失败是我们不应该回避的话题。它不再像过去那样只代表羞耻，或是有人说的庆祝的理由。其实我需要坦言一件事。每次我听到硅谷范的论调，或者有学生吹嘘自己如何愈败愈战，而且常常觉得这没什么大不了的，我就会感到不寒而栗，因为我觉得“愈败愈战”的言论有着很大的弊端。当然，愈败愈战是加速学习、避免浪费时间的好办法。但我害怕的是，当我们把愈败愈战当成企业家们的某个或唯一选项时，可能也在鼓励浅尝辄止。我们可能在鼓励企业家轻易放弃！我同时也害怕这种草率失败的文化对企业失败所带来的恶劣影响过于轻描淡写了。例如，当我的企业倒闭时，最糟糕的环节是，我需要回到原住民社区告诉那些女性，生意失败了，这是我的错。在有些人看来，这是我得到的最好的教训，但真相是，企业倒闭背后的意义要深远得多——它意味着这些女性将没法获得她们迫切需要的收入。
For this reason, I want to propose something. I want to propose that just as we put aside the idea of publicly humiliating failed entrepreneurs, we must put aside the idea that failing fast is always the best. And I want to propose a new mantra: fail mindfully. We must remember that businesses are made of people, businesses are not entities that appear and disappear magically without consequences. When a firm dies, some people will lose their jobs. And others will lose their money. And in the case of social and green enterprises, the death of this business can have a negative impact on the ecosystems or communities they were trying to serve.
针对这一点，我有个提议。我想要提议，就像我们摒弃了公开羞辱失败企业家这种想法一样，我们也必须把“愈败愈战总是最佳选择”的想法抛诸脑后。我想要提出一个新的箴言：谨慎地失败。我们必须记住，公司是由人组成的，公司的每一次创立和失败都不会奇迹般地没有任何后果。当公司关闭时，有些人会失去工作，有些人会失去收入。在社会和绿色企业中，这些企业的死亡会对它们服务的生态或社区产生负面影响。
But what does it mean to fail mindfully? It means being aware of the impact, of the consequences of the failure of that business. Being aware of the lessons learned. And being aware of the responsibility to share those learnings with the world.
那么谨慎地失败是什么意思呢？意思就是意识到企业失败的影响和后果，意识到得到的教训，还意识到有责任与他人分享这些教训。
Thank you.
谢谢。