Don’t Fail Elegantly

  Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

There are moments when projects enter a risk zone, when challenges arise without clear remedies and teams start looking for a way to “fail elegantly.” This is when leaders must intervene with messages and actions aimed at getting back into a winning mindset. But first they must remedy these seven leadership mistakes.

The desire to win is embedded in the human psyche. So why is it that in the business world the “win or (almost) die trying” principle seems to falter? Why do so many talented, well-led teams and organizations — many of them with clear, reasonable goals — fail to win?

It’s because they’ve been infected with the disease of “failing elegantly.”Failing elegantly is a very sophisticated and veiled set of coping behaviors by individuals, the purpose of which is to avoid the oncoming train of embarrassment when the cover comes off the lousy results that we’d prefer no one ever see. In other words, it’s a fancy way to lose.

Essentially, this debilitating syndrome sets in when people stop believing they can be successful and start devoting their energy to how best to lose. There is no obvious moment when the danger of failure comes riding in on a pale horse. But there is that moment, and everyone can feel it, when a project or the commitment to the promised results enters the risk zone — when …

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