Failure is ALWAYS an Option

NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz

When I visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, a couple of years ago, I noticed a tote bag in the gift shop with these words: “Failure is not an option.” Although the quote is attributed to Gene Kranz, the NASA flight director of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, he never said it. Actor Ed Harris, who portrayed Kranz in the Apollo 13 film, does use the line and Kranz himself adopted it as the title for his autobiography.

The phrase itself is a great motivator but in reality we must admit that failure is always an option in any endeavor that involves risk or creativity. Failure is part of life. Someone said, “The saddest thing in the world is not to fail but not to have tried.” If we risk greatly, there is always the chance that we will fail . . . and that’s all right. It is in failing that we learn and grow.

The failure of the Apollo 13 space craft created the opportunity for success in finding ways to adapt existing hardware and systems onboard the space craft to save the crew. Kranz and his team were challenged to new levels of creativity and improvisation in order to keep the three-man crew alive and return them safely to earth. They brought success out of failure.

Failure is always a possibility; the important thing is what we do with it. If we do not learn from our mistakes, then continued failure is inevitable; however, if we learn from our mistakes, we have the opportunity to learn and grow with each failure.

One of my mentors, Glenn Yarbrough, passed away last week. When I was a young campus minister under his supervision, I admitted that I had tried some things that just had not worked like I thought they would. He responded, “Just keep on trying.” He was giving me permission to fail.

It is one thing to say that failure is an option but quite another to encourage someone to try, to fail, and to learn from failure. Only leaders who understand that we can learn from our failures create a culture that can live with failure. Glenn Yarbrough did that for those he led.

From a Christian perspective, it is not a sin to fail. The sin is not learning from failure. We can be grateful that our God is the God of second chances. No matter how far we fall, God picks us up.

(A version of this post appeared on this blog on June 7, 2016.)

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