Summer 2016 IOLTA Workshops
San Francisco, California
Failure: The Key to Your Success
Materials
Friday, August 5, 2016
8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
REDEFINING FAILURE
Who Said…
Thomas Edison
Henry Ford
Bill Gates
Teddy Roosevelt
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ___________________________
“Failure is opportunity to begin again but only more intelligently.” __________________________
“It’s fine to celebrate success but it more important to heed the lessons of failure.” ______________
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have
done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who
does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who
at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor
defeat.” ____________________________
The journeys of many successes begin with failures…. (Match event to correct person)
EVENTS
PEOPLE
Cut from his high school basketball team
Dropped out of college & first company crumble
Arianna Huffington
Failed in 3 candy companies
Bill Gates
Fired for lack of creativity
Charles Schultz
Fired from Apple
Harrison Ford
Fired fromTV station for being too emotionally
invested in her stories
Michael Jordan
First book rejected by 27 different publishers
Milton Hershey
For decades held the records for most strike outs
(1,330)
Oprah Winfrey
Babe Ruth
Producers told him he would never succeed in movie
business
Sidney Poitier
Rejected by 36 Publishers
Steve Jobs
Rejected by University of Southern California School
of Cinematic Arts
Steven Spielberg
Rejected for a position with Walt Disney
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything
Thomas Edison
Told to stop wasting director's time and get a job as
dishwasher
Walt Disney
Sources:
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/
http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2015-7
Secondary source – Betty Balli Torres’ Facebook newsfeed
Two Case Studies of Failure
Operational/Program - Flint Michigan Water
Flint, Michigan, lies about 70 miles from the shores of the largest group of fresh water bodies in
the world: the Great Lakes. Yet its residents can't get clean water from their taps.
Nearly two years ago, the state decided to save money by switching Flint's water supply from
Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River, a notorious
tributary that runs through town known to locals for its filth.
The switch was made during a financial state of emergency for the ever-struggling industrial
town. It was supposed to be temporary while a new state-run supply line to Lake Huron was
ready for connection. The project was estimated to take about two years.
Soon after the switch, the water started to look, smell and taste funny. Residents said it often
looked dirty. The Flint River is highly corrosive: 19 times more so than the Lake Huron
supply, according to researchers from Virginia Tech.
According to a class-action lawsuit, the state Department of Environmental Quality wasn't
treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent, in violation of federal law. Therefore,
the water was eroding the iron water mains, turning water brown.
But what residents couldn't see was far worse. About half of the service lines to homes in Flint
are made of lead and because the water wasn't properly treated, lead began leaching into the
water supply, in addition to the iron.
This had been the status quo for nearly two years, and until September, city and state officials
told worried residents that everything was fine. Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling even drank
it on local TV to make the point.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/
Financial – The Closing of Hull House
Last month's abrupt closure of Hull House, a venerable organization that provided an array of
social services to thousands of low-income Chicago residents, is a pointed reminder that many
nonprofits operate with precarious finances. The organization's collapse also provides a
sobering lesson for nonprofit boards and chief executives.
Hull House was started by Nobel laureate Jane Addams in 1889 to help Chicago's immigrants
build "responsible, self-sufficient lives." Until last month, Hull House had continued Addams's
legacy by offering foster-care services, job training, counseling, and literacy and other
education programs at more than 40 sites throughout Chicago.
On January 27, its 300 employees received layoff notices and final paychecks, and Hull House
shut its doors.
On the day the organization closed, a blogger for Crain's Chicago Business asked a question she
said she'd been hearing from many people in Chicago’s nonprofit community: How could a
board that included prominent lawyers, management consultants, financial advisers, and
corporate executives have allowed a 120-year-old community institution to collapse under its
watch?
A good question, with no simple answer.
Hull House board chairman Steven Saunders, in an NPR interview, blamed the economic climate
for the organization's failure. Others experts quoted in the story described a scenario that has
become familiar over the past four years: A challenging economy creates increased demand for
social services but also causes government agencies and foundations to reduce their support.
While the economic climate certainly had an impact on Hull House, its collapse can’t be
summed up as a simple case of increased demand and reduced resources. The organization’s
Form 990 informational tax returns reveal that Hull House had serious financial problems even
before the recession.
Its June 30, 2007, balance sheet showed that its unrestricted net assets were negative $2.3million, meaning Hull House was millions in the red before the recession even began.
In an interview for a Chronicle of Philanthropy article, Mr. Saunders said that financial reports
prepared by management had sugar-coated the situation and that because staff members had
maintained a positive attitude, the board failed to understand the magnitude of the financial
problems until they were too large to solve.
In the same article, Clarence Wood—a former chief executive of Hull House who retired last
year—criticized the board for not understanding the idea of "living on the edge.” According to
Mr. Wood, “the reason the staff members like me were staying positive in attitude was that we
are very used to social-service agencies always being on the brink of destruction."
Those contrasting views illustrate what may have gone wrong at Hull House. And the same
dynamics are being played out in the board rooms of other organizations that face similar
challenges
https://philanthropy.com/article/Hull-House-Collapse-Is-a/190601
Use the Failure Checklist to walk through your case study as to how one could ‘learn’ from
the failure.
Failure Checklist
Describe the Failure
What Can We Learn From This?
How Could We Have Done Things Differently?
Where Do We Go From Here?
What Does This Make Possible?
http://personalsuccesstoday.com/the-failure-checklist/
Failure Checklist
Describe the Failure
What Can We Learn From This?
How Could We Have Done Things Differently?
Where Do We Go From Here?
What Does This Make Possible?
http://personalsuccesstoday.com/the-failure-checklist/
Learning from failure session Sources
Quotes and Beginning with failure Matches
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/
http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2015-7
Secondary source – Betty Balli Torres’ Facebook newsfeed
Video Link
https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure
Two case studies
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/
https://philanthropy.com/article/Hull-House-Collapse-Is-a/190601
Checklist
http://personalsuccesstoday.com/the-failure-checklist/