At some point, be it today or within a couple of months, either Trump or Biden will be declared victorious.
Which means either Trump or Biden will have failed.
It’s black and white.
Failure is tough. You know this. I know this. And for a simple reason – we all fail at things.
Some people though claim that there’s no such thing as failure – there’s only success or learning. And you can see the point they’re trying to make.
But we need to be careful with that thinking.
Think of a project in your business. The plan is for the project to succeed. So the scope of the project needs to be delivered within budget and on time while holding to the required level of quality.
If it’s late, or if it goes over budget, or if the quality isn’t where it needs to be, then that project has failed.
If it fails, a well done project review will help identify causes of failure and point to actions required to prevent recurrences. (And of course, successful projects too should be reviewed in order to identify good stuff to emulate in the future.)
That’s all valid. Pragmatic. Forward-looking.
But we need to be careful not to sugar-coat things. We still need to keep the “failure” word around.
It helps us maintain high standards. To strive for success. The first time.
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