Failure IS an option.

Generally speaking, it’s good not to be wrong.

Being wrong can waste precious time, resources and opportunity – it can even kill you.

And it’s not just hazardous for you; when you’re wrong it can seriously hurt innocent people around you and if you happen to be the head of a country or religion being wrong can have devastating consequences that can last decades, if not centuries.

That said, it’s not always bad to be wrong.

It’s how most of us learn, how we get better at anything. It’s the essential building block of experience and when you consider how many of humanity’s greatest discoveries happened by accident you begin to wonder where we’d be without our stuff-ups.

Yet the most cited barrier to innovation in organisations is ‘fear of failure’ (although I suspect the problem isn’t the failure but the blame that comes with it).

Failure is your friend; the trick is in the timing.

The faster you fail, the quicker you learn and the smarter you become.

But the more we refuse to acknowledge our mistakes, the more we cover them up and pretend to be perfect and infallible, the longer the error lasts… and the wronger we become.

So go ahead. Be wrong.

Just do it quickly.