How do you measure success?

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success." – Thomas J. Watson, IBM CEO

One of our human failings is that we tend to remember wins and forget losses. We take credit for success and blame chance for failure. For example, a study of “professional” sports gamblers revealed that they took credit when their team won. “I knew it.” But when the team lost, it was a “fluke”, or a bad call, or some other rare occurrence. College students when tested, felt sure that they could predict (better than chance) the results of coin tosses. No way would they settle for just 50%.

Because we favor wins over losses, we often place an artificially high standard for success. Professional golfers were asked how often they sank a 6-foot putt in competition. One guessed he sank 91-92%. Another said no one should be considered a pro unless they sank at least 80%. The average, measured at one Pro tournament, was 54%. The Pros, when told, refused to believe the number.

I was reminded of these stories when a friend wrote in her blog that Washington, while a noble man, “also was a poor military strategist, losing many major battles in the war.” I disagreed and did some research. Of the battles Washington commanded, he won 7 out of 13, an average of 54%. Just as reliable as the professional golfers.

I tried googling for statistics on military generals but couldn’t find anything with win-loss ratios. Does history emphasize the final outcome and not the path along the way?

Consider another sport – baseball. A good battling average is .300 while .400 is now considered impossible. This means the best of the best hitters will only suceed every 1 in 3 times at bat. Most will strike out over 70% of the time. Babe Ruth is remembered as a Home Run King. But he was also the Strike-out King of his day with a terrible batting average. For the Babe it was a home run or nothing.

Bottom Line

How should you meaure success? Two ways come to mind.

1. Know what the average success rate is for others. Then you can decide what level you want to compete at – average, top 25%, top 10%, etc.
2. Or forget numbers and consider instead: did you achieve your objective? Washington lost some battles but won the war and earned the respect of leading generals like Napolean. The 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae lost but succeeded in blocking an army of over a million Persians for several days.

What in life would you like to succeed at?