Failure is an Option

March 20, 2010

Norman, OK

To my Chemistry Friends,

I am a member of American Chemical Society, I do listen to some live webinars often on ACS website. Those are open to non-members also but need pre-registration. Or you can listen to recorded webinars later. 

Last month I listened to a webinar on the topic "Failure is an option". I want to share what I learnt from the webinar. When you are suppose to execute an assignment, you will have few options to do the assignment. Like Option A, Option B, Option C. You will start working on any one. But the lecturer of webinar Dr. Ben Yerxa said that, we need to consider another option called "Failure". And sometimes we have to take that option voluntarily.

Let us think like this, you are in the middle of your research project and your reactions are not working good. It seems you are going to fail. What do you do? Fail fast. Don't delay. When you fear to face the failure, it will worsen your job. The funding agency will have negative remark on your project, you will be wasting time and chemicals, you will be delaying further research by someone else on the topic, losing your energy. So fail as soon as possible. And start new one earlier. 

Calculate your risk. Answer me to one question, how much calculation do you do before you start a research project? The lecturer points out few calculations. Due date for the result, percentage of product's purity, amount of chemicals needed, size of the budget, number of workers involved, your knowledge and ability on the project, chance of failure, etc. A good decision maker should do this calculation numerically, for what we studied mathematics throughout our schools. This is called risk calculation. This applies to your daily lab works too. 

Bigger the risk, greater the invention. When Right brothers risked their life in flying, they came up with a boon to mankind. When Alfred Noble risked his life with nitroglycerin, he came up with explosive that could bomb heavy rocks. The 'guts' to risk will keep your project alive. It doesn't mean you should accept project that's going to fail. But trust your calculation and rely on that throughout your project.

It's easier to take risk which will affect only you. How about if your decision risks your whole team? At this time you need to select members for your team who could understand the risk. (And if they feel you are the only risk to them, then better call others to take the decision making job. Ha ha ha.) 

To be crispy, "If you want to fail, fail quicker. That's the only way to succeed sooner".  Applies to your research. 

Saravanan Ramasamy