The big news coming from the World Cup play this weekend was the “howler” score allowed by the English goalie.

By all accounts the British team fairly dominated the US team. The USA allowed a goal very early and it appeared as though they might get steamrolled. However, they hung tough, and a fairly weak shot at goal slipped through the fingers of Robert Green. It wasn’t a tough shot to block, it was right to him, he had it, then he lost it. As I watched the replay I could only feel for Green, this is an embarrassing moment he may live with for the rest of his life.

It had me thinking about the concept of failure.

First of all, nobody truly fails until they quit.  Robert Green made a brilliant save in the second half to prevent an English loss. I saw a picture of him playing golf yesterday, yes, that’s right, don’t focus on your mistake.

When it comes to Innovation, you really have to expect failure, even multiple failures. Nothing good is ever easy. If it’s easy it would have been done already by someone else, so, innovation means tackling big, thorny, hairy, complex, difficult challenges. Those types of challenges don’t often succumb at the first assault.  You have to keep at it, and use what you learn failing to overcome. Stefan Thomke of Harvard Business School, in his book Experimentation Matters, stresses the value of experimentation (which is really a word for planned failure and learning), saying you should “lather, rinse, and repeat.”

It’s also why methodologies like Six Sigma, which aim for perfection, are not the best way to fly when it comes to breakthrough innovation.

Notable “failures:”

• Van Gogh sold virtually nothing before he died
• Edison said “I’ve not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work”
• Perhaps the greatest example of someone who continued to fail, and fail again, was Abe Lincoln (see this list)
• Colonel Sanders was 65 years old and broke when he started selling fried chicken as a last ditch idea
• Disney was working in a shed, his cartoons rejected again and again, when a mouses ran across his drawing board
• Henry Ford was broke at the age of 40
• Elvis failed music in school, in his first two auditions for a singing group, was so nervous performing in public his legs shook…
• Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded
• Barry Gordy of Motown failed as a boxer, then failed again as a record store owner

So, Mr. Green, you are in the company of many great people, you’ve failed. What matters now is what you learn from it.

If you are an Innovator — and not a football goalie — thank goodness your failures are not quite so public.  So accept failure when it happens, learn from the mistakes, and try again. Or, as Thomke says, lather, rinse, and repeat.