We all fail. And when it happens to you, someone's certain to point out that you can learn more from your failures than your successes. But learning from failure isn't automatic, or instantaneous. It requires very specific emotional and rational skills. You can learn those skills from this book. Drawing on leading-edge research with hundreds of entrepreneurs who have experienced both failure and success, From Lemons to Lemonade offers powerful strategies and practical techniques for managing the emotions generated by failure, so failure becomes less painful, learning happens faster, and you grow as much as possible from the experience. Dr. Dean Shepherd shows how to clarify why you failed, so you can walk away with insights you can actually use...helps you discover when to "pull the plug" on a failure in progress, so it won't last longer or feel even worse than necessary...shows how to eliminate secondary stresses that aggravate failure or make it more likely...helps you maintain your commitment to excellence even when you know that repeated project failure is likely...helps you master the self-compassion and self-caring you deserve in times of trouble. Let's face it: failing is never easy. But From Lemons to Lemonade will help you make it less painful and more useful and help you move from failure to success far more rapidly.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dean A. Shepherd, Ph.D. is the Randall L. Tobias Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. His research focuses on the decision-making and cognition required to leverage entrepreneurial opportunities and learn from experimentation and failure. Shepherd has authored or edited eight books on entrepreneurship and strategy. He coauthored Entrepreneurship, a leading textbook now in its seventh edition. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Business Venturing, a reviewer for several journals, and a panelist for the National Science Foundation in the areas of Innovation and Organization Science.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
According to Dean Shepherd, project failure can lead to one of three outcomes: (1) the person's emotional pain is so great that she or he gives up and never tries again, (2) the person primarily responsible for the failure blames others and immediately begins another project, and (3) the person experiencing failure manages emotional pain during a shorter period of time and that experience does not prevent learning from it before beginning another project. "I focus on providing strategies and techniques to help you avoid the first two outcomes in order to achieve the third." Shepherd makes good on that promise and it should be noted that his observations and suggestions will be as valuable to supervisors of those involved in projects as it is to each of those individuals.
The healthiest organizations are those that have a culture of civility and candor. There is mutual trust and respect because there is transparency at all levels and in all areas. The leaders of these organizations are not risk-adverse. On the contrary, they not only encourage but also insist on, for example, principled dissent. Therefore, everyone feels free to "speak to power." In these companies, there is constant experimentation to create something new or to make something better. Failure of many experiments is inevitable and each failure is viewed as a precious learning opportunity. It is no coincidence that most of the companies on Fortune magazine's annual lists of those "Most Highly Admired" and the "Best to Work For" are also on the lists of those most profitable and most valuable.
With rigor and eloquence, Shepherd addresses these challenges:
1. How manage emotions to learn from failure?
2. Why learning from failure is difficult but rewarding?
3. Which strategies for learning from failure most effective?
4. When to "pull the plug" to maximize personal growth?
Note: Seth Godin also has much of great value to say about this in The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).
5. How and why self-compassion can help us learn from failure?
6. What are the relationships between and among emotional intelligence, support from others, and learning from failure?
7. Howe and why to prepare for multiple failures?
In Chapter 7, Shepherd shares additional reflections about various subjects discussed in the preceding chapters and his concluding remarks are in the form of reflections and advice to his daughter, Meg, as she is about to start kindergarten. One key point is, "I want her know that failure is not the opposite of success." A failure (including a project failure) is the opposite of success only when (a) there is nothing of value learned from it and then applied beneficially, (b) those involved are unable to manage the emotional pain and become totally risk-adverse, or (c) the person primarily responsible blames others, learns nothing, and continues the same behavior and attitude when involved in another project.
By the way, most of Shepherd's insights also suggest that there are successes (however defined) that are much less successful than presumed because (a) no one involved learns anything of value from it, (b) someone claims full (and undeserved)) credit for it, or (c) senior managers fail to understand and appreciate what the success has achieved and therefore do not leverage it, as was frequently the case at Xerox's research center in Palo Alto, for example, where breakthroughs in computer technology were abandoned.
Of special interest to me are the three strategies that Shepherd recommends to help us to manage our emotions so that we can learn from failure. Here is an abbreviation of his material.
1. What happened? "The first is a loss-oriented strategy that focuses on building an understanding of why the project [or initiative] failed. As we develop a plausible story for the failure, we can break emotional bonds to the [loss]." Relinquishing ownership of a loss does not deny our relationship with it. The story strategy assigns roles for participants who will now collaborate on the explanation of what happened. Failure (however defined) is almost never a solo performance.
2. What caused it to happen? "The second approach is a restoration-oriented strategy that involves both distracting ourselves from thinking about the [failure] and addressing secondary causes." Failure tends to cause various exaggerations, including exaggeration of one's responsibility for it. It is never an orphan.
3. Now what? "The third strategy is a combination of the other two. The oscillation strategy involves alternating the use of the other two strategies. This allows us to benefit from either one for an extended period of time."
Shepherd goes on to say, "This process maximizes learning from failure by managing emotions. It helps focus attention on collecting information about why the project [or initiative] fails to construct a plausible account of the failure event. In doing so, we can break the emotional bonds to the [loss], reducing the strength of the emotional response and eventually eliminating it."
I commend Dean Shepherd on a brilliant achievement. Bravo!
The healthiest organizations are those that have a culture of civility and candor. There is mutual trust and respect because there is transparency at all levels and in all areas. The leaders of these organizations are not risk-adverse. On the contrary, they not only encourage but also insist on, for example, principled dissent. Therefore, everyone feels free to "speak to power." In these companies, there is constant experimentation to create something new or to make something better. Failure of many experiments is inevitable and each failure is viewed as a precious learning opportunity. It is no coincidence that most of the companies on Fortune magazine's annual lists of those "Most Highly Admired" and the "Best to Work For" are also on the lists of those most profitable and most valuable.
With rigor and eloquence, Shepherd addresses these challenges:
1. How manage emotions to learn from failure?
2. Why learning from failure is difficult but rewarding?
3. Which strategies for learning from failure most effective?
4. When to "pull the plug" to maximize personal growth?
Note: Seth Godin also has much of great value to say about this in The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).
5. How and why self-compassion can help us learn from failure?
6. What are the relationships between and among emotional intelligence, support from others, and learning from failure?
7. Howe and why to prepare for multiple failures?
In Chapter 7, Shepherd shares additional reflections about various subjects discussed in the preceding chapters and his concluding remarks are in the form of reflections and advice to his daughter, Meg, as she is about to start kindergarten. One key point is, "I want her know that failure is not the opposite of success." A failure (including a project failure) is the opposite of success only when (a) there is nothing of value learned from it and then applied beneficially, (b) those involved are unable to manage the emotional pain and become totally risk-adverse, or (c) the person primarily responsible blames others, learns nothing, and continues the same behavior and attitude when involved in another project.
By the way, most of Shepherd's insights also suggest that there are successes (however defined) that are much less successful than presumed because (a) no one involved learns anything of value from it, (b) someone claims full (and undeserved)) credit for it, or (c) senior managers fail to understand and appreciate what the success has achieved and therefore do not leverage it, as was frequently the case at Xerox's research center in Palo Alto, for example, where breakthroughs in computer technology were abandoned.
Of special interest to me are the three strategies that Shepherd recommends to help us to manage our emotions so that we can learn from failure. Here is an abbreviation of his material.
1. What happened? "The first is a loss-oriented strategy that focuses on building an understanding of why the project [or initiative] failed. As we develop a plausible story for the failure, we can break emotional bonds to the [loss]." Relinquishing ownership of a loss does not deny our relationship with it. The story strategy assigns roles for participants who will now collaborate on the explanation of what happened. Failure (however defined) is almost never a solo performance.
2. What caused it to happen? "The second approach is a restoration-oriented strategy that involves both distracting ourselves from thinking about the [failure] and addressing secondary causes." Failure tends to cause various exaggerations, including exaggeration of one's responsibility for it. It is never an orphan.
3. Now what? "The third strategy is a combination of the other two. The oscillation strategy involves alternating the use of the other two strategies. This allows us to benefit from either one for an extended period of time."
Shepherd goes on to say, "This process maximizes learning from failure by managing emotions. It helps focus attention on collecting information about why the project [or initiative] fails to construct a plausible account of the failure event. In doing so, we can break the emotional bonds to the [loss], reducing the strength of the emotional response and eventually eliminating it."
I commend Dean Shepherd on a brilliant achievement. Bravo!
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
It's like a doctoral thesis that does common people little good
November 15, 2009
By ServantofGod
Format:Hardcover
As a regular loser (but strives on nevertheless), I am sorry to tell this book does me little good with the theories, EQ tests and the strategies suggested. It appeals primarily to the rational mind (see this conclusion on pg78: Personal growth is optimized by balancing the financial and emotional costs of failure) and one can easily sense the emotionlessness of the author in his description of the loser case studies. In short, if one looks for something to furnish his/her thesis or consultancy paper, it's okay. If you want to help yourself, please give it a pass.
p.s. Below please find some of my favorite quotes which made me rate this book a marginally two star.
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. - Alfred Hitchcock. pg47
Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. - Sir Winston Churchill pg47
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. - Thomas Szasz pg81
Dont think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the Light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness. - Lao Tzu pg117
p.s. Below please find some of my favorite quotes which made me rate this book a marginally two star.
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. - Alfred Hitchcock. pg47
Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. - Sir Winston Churchill pg47
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. - Thomas Szasz pg81
Dont think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the Light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness. - Lao Tzu pg117
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By John Caddell
Format:Hardcover
There are not a lot of books that study failure. There are probably 10x the number of books about learning from success (Good to Great, In Search of Excellence, etc. etc.). There are even fewer that deal with the personal impacts of failure. This is one of the few. As such, it's a very important book.
Shepherd is a psychologist and approaches failure from that vantage point. Probably the key insight here is the need to absorb failures over time, and to adopt strategies that help us cope with failure. We often use these strategies, but unconsciously and without regard for whether we are using the correct strategy for us. He also focuses on the need for self-compassion - in other words, not beating ourselves up over failure. Paradoxically, forgiving ourselves for failures allows us to learn from them.
The use of many first-name pseudonyms can cause confusion for the reader. And the frequency with which Shepherd uses psychological measurement instruments - too much for my taste - prevents me from giving it a 5. But if you want to learn how to cope with failure more effectively, it's a book worth reading.
Shepherd is a psychologist and approaches failure from that vantage point. Probably the key insight here is the need to absorb failures over time, and to adopt strategies that help us cope with failure. We often use these strategies, but unconsciously and without regard for whether we are using the correct strategy for us. He also focuses on the need for self-compassion - in other words, not beating ourselves up over failure. Paradoxically, forgiving ourselves for failures allows us to learn from them.
The use of many first-name pseudonyms can cause confusion for the reader. And the frequency with which Shepherd uses psychological measurement instruments - too much for my taste - prevents me from giving it a 5. But if you want to learn how to cope with failure more effectively, it's a book worth reading.
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