Business Quote by Jesse C Middendorf
““Embracing Failure WE NEED TO FAIL. Churches need to fail more. Leaders need to fail more. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has, since the 1990s, been hosting what he calls failure parties for scrapped research projects. 1 Edgy design company 5Crowd has a failure party every month—complete with failure high-fives and often wrapping up with a celebratory failure cake! 2 When venture capitalists assess whether to invest in a new idea, one of the key characteristics they look for is a previous failed startup. They prefer to invest in a leader who has already run a company into the ground.””
About This Quote
Failure is presented as a necessary and productive step for growth, encouraging organizations and leaders to openly acknowledge and celebrate setbacks to foster learning and resilience.
In simple terms: Failure as a catalyst for innovation and improvement.
Key Takeaway
Embrace failure to accelerate progress.
Themes
growth mindset
learning from mistakes
organizational culture
leadership development
innovation
Mood
optimistic
reflective
encouraging
Type
motivational
analytical
When to use this quote
- corporate strategy meetings
- startup pitch sessions
- research project reviews
- team-building workshops
Key Concepts
failure parties
risk tolerance
iterative experimentation
celebration of setbacks
Practical Applications
- designing feedback loops for continuous improvement
- creating safe spaces for risk‑taking
Questions to Reflect On
- How can you institutionalize constructive failure in your team?
- What safeguards prevent failure from becoming demotivating?
![“[S]ometimes, when you are a food person, the possible irrelevance of what you are doing doesn’t cross your mind until it’s too late. (Once, for example, when I was just starting out in the food business, I was hired by the caper people to develop a lot of recipes using capers, and it was weeks of…” quote by Nora Ephron](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d79/nora-ephron-1217_business_s-ometimes-when-you-are-a-food-person-th_980.jpg)
![“If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.” quote by Bertrand Russell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bad/bertrand-russell-69_acquire_if-the-state-does-not-acquire-supremacy_1379.jpg)