WTF — Willing to Fail
Name the disaster, own it out loud, extract the lesson, restart clean.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 90%
WTF — Willing to Fail — is Scudamore's core philosophy and the title of his book: failure is the key to success if you own it and mine it. His canonical WTF moment came around $500K in revenue when he had eleven employees and, by his own count, nine bad apples. He had lost hope and stopped enjoying his own business. He sat the whole team down at a morning meeting and opened with two words: 'I'm sorry.' He fired nearly everyone, transparently and fairly, taking full blame for having hired them in the first place. The six months of rebuilding were miserable, but the failure produced the rule that governs the company today: it's all about people — finding the right ones and treating them right.
Origin
In the mid-90s at roughly half a million in revenue, Scudamore had a team of 11 and considered nine of them bad apples. He'd lost hope in his own business and wasn't enjoying the people he worked with. Recognising he was the only one to blame — he'd hired them all — he wiped the slate clean at a morning meeting, and spent the next six months painfully rebuilding around happy, optimistic people.
Core principles
- 01Failure is the tuition, not the verdict.
- 02The leader owns the failure — you hired them, you built it.
- 03Say 'I'm sorry' first and mean it; transparency preserves dignity on both sides.
- 04A clean slate beats a slow decay when the situation is unsalvageable.
- 05Every WTF moment must produce a durable rule, or the pain was wasted.
How to run it
- 1
Admit you've lost hope in the situation
The trigger for a WTF moment is honest recognition: 'I'd lost hope in my business, I wasn't having fun any longer, I wasn't enjoying the people I worked with.' Naming that is the entry point.
- 2
Take the blame as the leader
Before touching anyone else's accountability, own yours. Scudamore's framing: 'I was the only one to blame — I'm the one that hired them.' This is what makes the subsequent hard action defensible rather than scapegoating.
- 3
Choose between repair and clean slate
Assess honestly whether the situation can be coached back. Scudamore concluded 'the only way I knew to solve things was to start again, wipe the slate clean' — nine of eleven people were beyond repair.
Watch out The clean slate is the nuclear option. If most of the team is right and a few are wrong, this is not your tool.
- 4
Deliver it in person, starting with 'I'm sorry'
Scudamore sat all 11 down at the morning meeting and opened with two words: I'm sorry. Sorry I let you down, failed you, didn't give you the love and support you needed, maybe didn't bring the right people in.
Pro tip Do it face-to-face and as a group if the failure was systemic — it names the failure as yours rather than theirs.
Watch out 'They didn't love it' — expect that doing this well still hurts everyone. Fairness is the goal, not comfort.
- 5
Treat people fairly on the way out
Transparent, honest, fair terms. Scudamore's later restatement of the same principle: 'cut them loose, free them up to another opportunity, help them find another opportunity.' He personally coached a recent departure toward a new role.
- 6
Convert the failure into one durable rule
Extract the lesson explicitly. Scudamore's: 'as the leader the lesson for me over the next six months as I was rebuilding the business was — it's all about people, finding the right people and treating them right.' That rule now governs a thousands-strong organisation.
Pro tip Failing early is cheaper. Scudamore: 'I'm sure glad I didn't have to take the thousands of employees we have now and make that kind of change.'
Watch out A failure with no extracted rule is just damage.
In the wild
At around half a million in revenue, Scudamore had eleven employees and reckoned nine were bad apples. He had lost hope and stopped enjoying his own business. Rather than blame the team, he blamed his own hiring, sat all eleven down at the morning meeting, opened with 'I'm sorry,' and let the team go — transparently, honestly, and fairly. The following six months of rebuilding were, in his words, awful.
→ The rebuild produced the company's permanent hiring doctrine — hire happy, optimistic people; hire on attitude, train on skill — and the darkest day of his junk removal career became the foundation of a business that scaled past $400M in revenue.
Common mistakes
Blaming the people you chose
Scudamore's insight is that nine bad apples is a hiring failure, not a staffing accident. If you skip the ownership step, you'll rebuild with the same broken filter and repeat the failure.
Delaying the decision you've already made
'There's nothing worse in a manager or leader's life than bringing someone into the company when you know it's not going to work.' Dragging it out costs both sides.
Treating a WTF moment as a story instead of a lesson
The pain only pays if it terminates in a rule you actually operate by afterwards. Scudamore's rule — it's all about people — is still the company's number one filter decades later.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders facing a decision they know is right but dread — bad hires, a broken team, a failed strategy.
Not ideal for
Situations where the problem is genuinely fixable with coaching and patience, or environments where blunt honesty carries legal or safety risk.
From the transcript
“I sat them down at the morning meeting, all 11 people, and I started with two words. I said I'm sorry — I'm sorry that…”
“Now I was the only one to blame. I'm the one that hired them.”
“As the leader the lesson for me over the next six months as I was rebuilding the business was it's all about people — finding…”
From the episode
Brian Scudamore: From Trash to Cash
Brian Scudamore