Love him or loathe him, you only look at the podcast charts to see that Steven Bartlett’s on to something. His Diary of a CEO podcast is listened to by millions, the most listened to episodes all have one subject in common… failure.
A fear of failure it is often cited as a key barrier to innovation and entrepreneurialism in the UK. I’ve heard it first hand when I’ve interviewed scientists, start-up founders and even university students who say that if they fail, they won’t try again.
Bartlett himself is tackling this issue head on, famously hiring a head of failure because in his own words ‘those that fail the fastest, get the most feedback, because failure is feedback, and feedback is knowledge and knowledge is power.’
It seems podcasts have created this new platform where people talk about failure in a way that isn’t as relatable on other channels. Podcasts offer a safe space for us as listeners to engage deeply on a very personal topic without fear of judgment. It's like a coaching session, or eavesdropping on deeply human experience without needing to look someone in the eye.
In an industry that’s built around measuring success and avoiding mistakes, the growing cultural dialogue around failure holds valuable lessons for us as market researchers too:
Use ‘fast fail’ friendly methodologies:
Avoid situations where our clients blow their entire research budget and sample on an idea that isn’t working. Iterative methodologies, regular communication throughout fieldwork and proactivity are vital for our clients to fast fail.
Create a safe space for conversations about failure:
Personal failures often carry deep emotional significance which could inspire strategies, campaigns or product ideas that resonate deeply with customers’ real-life challenges. Just as podcasts are creating judgment free spaces for discussing failure, we as researchers should be striving to create environments that normalise this vulnerability too so research participants can speak freely and candidly about their failures.
Let’s shake it up and talk about our failures too:
Case studies always focus on the success, the business metrics we improved and the awards we won. At Show and Tells we never talk about the failures along the way - it’s those that could be a powerful catalyst for progress. Transparency about the setbacks could inspire new techniques, tools or ways of thinking that will make us better at what we do.
So how about it? After all, if we fail, we just try again.
Jane Passey, Apr 25
English (United States) 
English (UK)