Failure doesn’t define us. It fuels us.

Not in the traditional sense, I mean, I HATE to lose (capitals totally justified), and when Chaos Theory lost a big pitch recently, it made me realise a few things that I guess it’s easy to forget when the business machine is just steadily rolling along.

Look, I don’t take rejection well, and as hard as it is to admit, you never win them all. I have no idea why we didn’t land this particular client, because, as usual, the three-month process and tens of thousands spent on time, effort, energy, strategy, design, and bucket loads of passion ….were unceremoniously reduced to a one-line copy-and-paste rejection.

Fab. Love that!

BUT! Here’s my take. It’s a “good thing”.
The process is often more powerful than the project.

For context, as a small team, we take every pitch super seriously. It’s more than a number on a projection spreadsheet. We are in a space where the majority of our output is work we want to do, with a client we want to work with. (That bit is one of our biggest flexes, and we don’t apologise at all for it.)

So when we lose, for whatever reason, as passionate as we are, we regroup and figure out where we could have been better. Then we put on our big girl (and boy) pants, dust ourselves off, and well…carry on.

We aren’t solving world peace here, and it’s OK to be OK with that.

And here’s the thing. As an MD, I’ve noticed that the lost pitch seems to make my team hyper-focused on getting the next project righter than right! They become almost hyper-aware of the work at hand.

It’s unspoken, but it’s definitely a trend.

I suppose we all have different reasons for doing what we do, and perhaps losing projects to better work or a better overall solution is a great way to focus on the work we do have, and the fact that we’ve been around for over 20 years.

It makes us, the work, and ultimately the industry better!

The art of failing is a refined process that, the more it affects us, the more I think it should happen more often. I mean, not too often, but you get the picture!

My name is Andrew, and I’m a loser.
I’m thinking of making it my new email signature.

Andrew Ross, Chaos Theory MD