When failing is gaining

Did you read the first part of my blog on winning? It came on the back of our recent award shortlistings.

Here’s a quick update. In part one, I said acting like a winner is a daily habit.

And the flip side of that? You must never be afraid to fail.

Making mistakes is both human and necessary. The key is what we do next: treat the wobble as feedback, not a verdict.

If we can look at what didn’t land, name it, and adjust, then ‘failure’ becomes the fastest route to better work and sharper thinking. It’s how you build resilience – by keeping your hand up for the hard stuff (including the monotonous but essential pieces that underpin everything).

A familiar example: James Dyson built thousands of prototypes before landing the one that worked. Each ‘nope’ wasn’t wasted effort – it was data. Test, learn, refine, repeat until the product is genuinely better than what was there before.

And if you want a now-classic creative-world version, Pixar’s Toy Story was nearly derailed after an early screening went badly. The team regrouped, rewrote, and improved it at pace. Same principle, different craft. Take the hit, learn fast, and make the next version better.

In our world, ideas are constantly refined. Our campaign methodology is applied and then reviewed again. Creative work is continually developed through collaboration and improvement. Perfection may be technically unattainable, but excellence is always within reach if we apply enough talent, time, and responsibility to the task at hand.

As a partner here at 44, I’m incredibly proud of the brilliant, creative, dedicated team we have. They’re the people who make the day-to-day look effortless (even when it isn’t).

So, we rightly salute everyone shortlisted in the FEIEA, ICE, IoIC and CIPR Awards – being recognised in that crowd is no small achievement. And we’ll celebrate our own success properly – with gratitude, a great cup of tea (perhaps something stronger), and a brief flirtation with deluded grandeur.

But when the stardust settles and the stage lights are packed away, we’ll do what ‘real winning’ requires – get back to the weekly grind: learning, refining, collaborating, and making work we’d be happy to put our name to, whether anyone’s judging it or not.

44 fact: It’s 20 years since 44 Communications won its first industry award. 44 has recently been shortlisted for its creative work in multiple categories across the FEIEA, ICE and CIPR national and international awards. The IoIC Awards shortlist will be announced in July – fingers firmly crossed.