Tonight I had the pleasure of participating in mock interviews for graduates of a nonprofit that helps underserved demographics with training and landing jobs in the tech industry.

 

One of the questions that I asked the interviewee was…

 

 

This US Veteran’s answer was “when I don’t complete the mission”…then I started to dig a little deeper.

 

“What if you can’t complete the mission? What if the priorities are changed by the company, or funding is cut off, or the colleague that is working with you quits? And the mission fails? How would you handle that?”

 

“What is you complete everything you were assigned, on time, but the product fails once it’s out?”

 

He seemed a little unsettled, it was obvious he wasn’t comfortable with any sort of failure.  Or at least admitting he has failed before.

In an interview, they want to hear how you have handled failures and what you have learned.

 

I gave an example of Richard Branson (of Virgin Group) and how he is a big supporter of taking risks and learning from failures. And other companies like Tesla, who take so many risks, they are bound to have some failed “missions”. How do they guarantee which ones will be successful? And what about Google Glass? Super innovative and unique, but how many did they sell?

 

So failing to complete a mission in the military is much different than failing to complete a mission…project…meet a goal…a deadline…a quota in a corporation. Taking risks in the military is much different than taking risks in a tech company.

I have not served in the military and don’t fully understand all the consequences of taking risks but I have worked for the man in corporate America for many years and know that tech companies that support innovation and growth want you to take risks which may possibly result in failure.

 

 

 

Richard Branson’s Top 10 quotes about failure: https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/my-top-10-quotes-failure