Venture capitalists hold the philosophy that if a business is going to fail, it should fail quickly. Slowly failing businesses are bad for customers, bad for employees, and particularly bad for investors. Th e faster something is shut down, the faster something better can take its place, and the faster everyone involved can concentrate on different and better innovations. In business, failing fast is almost always better than failing slowly.

There is merit to this idea beyond the realm of business ventures and financial investments. If an idea is bad, it will eventually fail. As an expert you want to know it is bad as quickly as possible. Delayed awareness that an idea is bad does not make the idea good. To the contrary, delayed awareness only increases the likelihood of failure and the magnitude of the damage.

People knew as far back as the 1800s that exposure to asbestos was bad for human health. Yet, because of its abundance and low cost, we used the material in thousands of products. Eventually, the mistake of using asbestos in these products became evident, but by then, it had become enormous. After decades of remediation, there are still thousands of people each year who die from asbestos exposure.

Bad ideas are eventually uncovered. Ironically, experts often suspect failures far before they occur. Great experts can reveal bad ideas faster than anyone else. To do this, they need to remove all rose-colored glasses and vigilantly ask themselves and others probing questions. When will this idea fail? What circumstances will cause this theory to collapse? Why is this idea better than the next best alternative?

When you do find flaws in ideas, your role as an SME is not complete. Far from it. Fault-finding is not your sole objective. If you spend all your time pointing out the failings of ideas without offering solutions, you will quickly become an unpopular expert, and with good reason. Finding a flaw is the beginning of your job, not the end. Far too many experts believe their sole responsibility is to approve or reject the recommendations of others. To the contrary, an expert’s higher responsibility is to improve on the recommendations of others and find ways to solve problems.

If an idea’s failure is inevitable, then your job as an expert is to make it known quickly, accurately, and convincingly. Never allow your company, your friends, your colleagues, or your customers to drive off a cliff while you watch from the bleachers. If problems can be fixed, then fix them. If you can’t fix them yourself, then quickly recommend corrections to people who can fix them. If something is going to fail, then you should ensure it fails fast.