# Kerry Washington Refuses to Call Anything a Failure

> Kerry Washington’s production company turns failures into forward motion.
- Title: Kerry Washington Refuses to Call Anything a Failure · Inc
- Summary: Kerry Washington’s production company turns failures into forward motion. Kerry Washington’s production company avoids labeling failures by focusing on…
- Keywords: kerry washington, entire productions, hedgegate, failure, fail forward, event ops, podcast, Inc
- Source: Inc — https://inc.com/natasha-miller/kerry-washington-refuses-to-call-anything-a-failure/91431367
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: kerry washington, entire productions, hedgegate, failure, fail forward, event ops, podcast
## Hedgegate
The event design team faced a truck delivery failure but pivoted to create a successful event.
## Kerry Washington’s Take
Kerry Washington says her production company is 'really bad at labeling something as a failure' and prefers to 'fail forward'.

> we like to fail forward
## The Systemic Failure
The vendor dropped the truck, but the team still changed their rental order process to double-check.
## The String Quartet
A client never signed a contract, so the system released a string quartet without alert.
## Owning the Failure
The team took responsibility for the string quartet and kept the client despite the mistake.
## The Fix
The team added a button for verbal confirmations to prevent future failures.

> email/verbal confirm
## Fail Forward
Kerry Washington ties the lessons together: fail forward on what’s yours, let go of what isn’t, and keep building until the second pile gets smaller.

> fail forward on what’s yours, let go of what isn’t, and keep building until the second pile gets smaller
## Key takeaway

Kerry Washington’s production company avoids labeling failures by focusing on learning from what they control.