What can failure offer?

Failure offers lessons. America is one exemplary example which proves the idea of success starts with failure: the failing of the Articles of Confederation allows the founding fathers to construct the constitution, the document on which American is built. Google Inc. observed the failures of its competitors and learned from these failures to build itself into the world’s most renowned search engine. The recent recession arising largely from the housing crisis is such a depressing failure; however lesson is learned, and this financial downfall would help reinforce the policy makings for the later proceedings. Hence, learning the lessons offered by failures is an itinerary to success.

Success can be achieved by studying and learning from the earlier failures. The United States, the first great democracy of the modern world, sets a strong example for this. After just five years of living under the Articles of Confederation, which established the United States of America as a single country for the first time, the states realized that they needed a new document and a new, more powerful government. In the late 1780s, the Annapolis convention was convened. The result, three years later, was the Constitution, which created a more powerful central government while also maintaining the integrity of the states. By learning from the failure of the Articles, the founding fathers created the founding document of a country that has become both the most powerful country in the world and a beacon of democracy.

Unlike the United States, which had its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the Internet search engine company, Google Inc., has suffered few setbacks since it went into business in the late 1990s. Google has succeeded by studying the failures of other companies in order to help it innovates its technology and business model. Google identified and solved the problem of assessing the quality of search results by using the number of links pointing to a page as an indicator of the number of people who find the page valuable. Suddenly, Google’s search results became far more accurate and reliable than those from other companies, and now Google’s dominance in the field of Internet search is almost absolute.

Lessons from failure can also be used to prevent the future chaos. The banks’ policy makers failed to set a cautious requirement towards credit check and the financial arrangement for clients who purchased a home. The mistakes are also shared by the corruption and the unpractical, overambitious individuals from Wall Street. The home loan requirement was too lenient that allows many people of the obscure, low-credit to buy houses without down payment, later resulting in a higher number of loans on default. The bankrupting of the home owners has been widespread across the 50 states. Consequently, America was officially hammered by recession which results in job loss, dramatic drop in economic growth, financial deficits, social problems and other painful drawbacks. Learned from this failure, currently the banking system takes a higher caution towards the home loan policy. This enormous collapse has been kept as lesson to prevent the future turmoil.

Failure is often seen as embarrassing, something to be denied and hidden. But as the examples of the U.S. Constitution , Google, and Housing Crisis prove, if an individual, organization, or even a nation is strong enough to face and study its failure, then that failure can become a powerful teacher. The examples of history, business, and recent recession demonstrate that failure can be the best catalyst of success, but only if people have the courage to face it head on.