Why speed and mistakes are the foundations for success

I often write about Rakuten’s Five Principles for Success. I believe speed is essential to success in business. But what I have been forced to realize is that when I insist on speed, I have to accept that will come with another element that does not make me as happy – mistakes. I’ve written about mistakes often too.

When you take risks, sometimes mistakes will happen. Nobody likes them, but mistakes are going to happen. The trick is to embrace them as learning opportunities.

In Japan there is an old proverb saying that failure is the foundation of success. When you take the attitude of implementing improvements soon after a failure, you are actualizing this proverb.

Discover problems, and fix them quickly. Doing this repeatedly is the key to creating improvements in yourself and your company. Failure is only truly failure when it does not lead to improvement. And the only reason for this to happen is a slothful response by the people involved in the failure.

If you do not make improvements quickly, you will make the same mistakes over and over again.

When you move quickly and you take risks, mistakes will happen. But when you trip over a stone, take a good look at that stone. It may well turn out to be a diamond.

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. 

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Author: Hiroshi Mikitani is the CEO of Rakuten Inc.

Image: A Businesswoman is silhouetted as she makes her way under the Arche de la Defense. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann.