By Amy McDonald, FONA President

My New Year’s resolution might sound a little backwards. I’m challenging myself and the entire FONA Family to fail. In fact, I want us to fail MORE in 2019 than we did in 2018.

At FONA, we believe that failure is never the enemy – the real enemy is mediocrity. You might call mediocrity a four-letter word around here. Our goal is always excellence (but not perfection). Excellence is attainable and quite importantly, repeatable. Failure is acceptable as long as you learn from it. Here’s why we’re going to fail more in 2019.

1. Failure leads to growth

The fact is that if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not going to grow. Growth relies on thinking and acting differently. The world is moving so quickly, if you’re doing the exact same thing you did a year ago – you’re going to get left behind. Grow and move!

2. Failure teaches innovation

Ever fail and come away feeling, “well I know exactly what NOT to do next time”...? I know I have! From failure, the seeds of innovation are planted. A tweak here, a new process there, a new approach – if we didn’t fail, we’d never keep improving.

3. You risk much more by standing still than by making a mistake.

I mentioned it already but it can’t be overstated – things are moving quickly. Businesses risk so much more through inaction than they even realize. There’s no time for fear. The businesses that try once and fail – are still ahead of the game, because they’ve learned valuable lessons.

4. Failing openly improves company culture

Transparency and humility. FONA wouldn’t be FONA if we didn’t live these values. Interestingly, they’re both intricately connected to failure. Openly share mistakes and failures, from the leadership down. It empowers the rest of the business to be open and honest about their own activities. It also fosters humility, company-wide. Not one of us is perfect – if we were, what a boring world this would be! But a workplace filled with humble subject matter experts unafraid to fail? Who doesn’t want to work there?!

So in 2019, we’re going to fail more. That means our whole FONA Family is empowered to take more risk, try new things, and take action.

2019 is going to be a great year!

Moving Forward…

How about your business? Are you committed to failing a little this year? What forms does it take for you?

We’re always happy to hear from you. Visit www.fona.com/chat, or email feedback@fona.com.

Thanks for reading,