What do Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, Sammy Sosa and Mickey Mantle
have in common? As you likely guessed, they were all horrible baseball players. Yup - some of the most inept batters you'll find in baseball history. Complete and utter losers, really. At least that's the impression one might get when you see their names included among the batters with the most strikeouts. (Reggie Jackson holds the dubious honor as the #1 strikeout batter in history, having struck out 2,597 times at bat.) Of course, you know the punch line. They were also some of the top hitters to grace the game.
Baseball metaphors are cliche, but the trite idea that you need to take a lot of swings to hit it out of the ballpark appears to be true when it comes to creative organizations and creative people. From Edison to Jobs to Google, whether we're talking about creative artists, inventors, or entire companies, a lot of creative success comes down to a game of numbers. We marvel at the many ideas and inventions Edison or Google inspired, but we forget (or don't even hear about) the many, many misses.
The need to keep swinging the bat means that creative people and creative teams have two related traits in common:
1. Perseverance. Creative people tend to be the Energizer Bunnies of the world: They just keep going and going and going and going...
2. A healthy view of failure. This is the other side of the perseverance coin. In fact, I suspect the term "failure" isn't even in their vocabulary. Edison supposedly told a reporter that he "Succeeded in finding 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb." Failure, to creative people and creative companies, is simply part of the process. It's research. It's closing doors so that better ones can open. And yes, it's recognizing that in order to strike gold you may need to strike out a few times.
