Europe’s failure to deal with failure

Have you ever failed?

Failure is human – it can happen to anyone. That doesn’t take off its cutting edge – it’s unpleasant, sometimes dramatic and often feels like a bereavement. However, failure could also be the start of many new opportunities, challenges, new options and possibilities.

The only thing that perpetuates failure is to turn it into a permanent state. Nature itself can look as if it is failing. But as always, nature is the most excellent teacher because when it fails, it proceeds to learn and improve – and that is called evolution.

Businesses also fail – services, products and entrepreneurs go through a cycle of ups and downs. But unfortunately – and unlike what happens typically in the US – in Europe, we lack the culture of dealing adequately and in a modern way with failure.

We stigmatise failed entrepreneurs

In entrepreneurship especially, failure is a taboo – we in Europe stigmatise entrepreneurs, portray them as losers and refuse them a second, unburdened chance to restart from scratch.

For decades, enterprises’ worldwide average lifespan has constantly been shrinking. In the EU, the death rates of enterprises, published by Eurostat’s regional yearbooks, now...