A Wall Street Journal article describes research about failing entrepreneurs. The results are sobering: start-up business owners don’t seem to learn from their mistakes.

Francis Greene, at Edinburgh University Business School, explains several reasons for lack of learning. First, when entrepreneurs start new businesses, they have a different context and different customer, so any lessons learned from previous businesses might not apply. Greene also says that businesses typically “limp along”; during this slow-close process, it’s difficult to identify what the real problems were.

Finally, as you might expect, we have psychological barriers for failing to learn from failure. We tend to simplify reasons and blame external factors.

Greene suggests taking time to explore what happened after a business failed and ensuring that we have the industry expertise to succeed in the next venture.

Failure image source.

Discussion:

• This reminds me of Amy Edmondson’s HBR article, “Strategies for Learning from Failure.” What similarities and differences do see in their research findings and recommendations?

• When have you failed? How did you learn from the experience? Can you identify ways to learn better in the future?