According to data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 47 percent of the companies founded in 2005 were still alive in 2010. Although venture management experts certainly don't enjoy failure, those who fail have the opportunity to turn their failures into strengths. If, as a business professional, you ever experience this type of business failure, it is important to overcome it instead of questioning your business knowledge and skills. Use these tips for turning venture management failures into strengths, you can use to land new jobs or start new companies.
One of the best ways to turn a failed venture into one of your strengths is to acknowledge the role you played in the failure. Although it is tempting to find excuses for why the failure occurred, you must be able to review the situation objectively and determine if your venture management style had an impact on the success of the company. This objective examination will help you identify the mistakes that led to the failure, which can give you an opportunity to avoid such mistakes in the future.
Another way to turn a business failure into a strength is to use the failure as an opportunity to examine your organizational culture and identify what changes you need to make. You may need to provide better training for your workers, hire more experienced managers and leaders, or do a better job of strategic planning. No matter what errors you made during your venture management failure, you can use the mistakes as a learning opportunity. As you lead new ventures, you will be better able to identify problems before they have such a big impact on your company.
Natasha Odendaal of Creamer Media's Engineering News reports that many small- and medium-sized ventures fail because of a lack of skills, rather than a lack of capital. In fact, continuing to fund businesses that lack managers with high-level business skills actually hurts those businesses. Venture management professionals also need to have entrepreneurial skills and the ability to motivate the people they manage. If your first venture management opportunity was a failure, you can use that failure to motivate yourself to seek out education and training opportunities that will help you develop the skills you need for business success in the future.
If you experience venture management failure, it is important to remember that great successes also experienced failure in their lives. Melissa Kennedy wrote about Steve Jobs, who was fired from Apple and almost quit working in the tech industry. Had Jobs let that failure ruin his confidence, we might not have many of the products we now take for granted. Steve Jobs was able to take what he learned from his failure and apply it to other business situations.
Most people experience failure at one time in their lives. It is not important that you succeed at everything you do, but it is important that you learn from your failures. If you experience venture management failure, identify your mistakes, take the steps needed to correct those mistakes, and use what you learned to succeed in your future endeavors.
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