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Positive reflections on failure

By | June 27, 2010, 3:16pm PDT

Innovation, learning, personal growth, and organizational excellence are all impossible to achieve without overcoming setbacks and obstacles along the way. Of course, these challenges make failure difficult to face and discuss.

Negative attitudes toward risk-taking, usually born of fear or arrogance, can interfere with our ability to learn from mistakes and adapt to adverse or changing conditions. Resistance to change and difficulty learning from failure are significant issues that drive many problems on IT programs of all kinds.

With that in mind, here are two poems that express a distinctly positive attitude toward failure. These poems were both written by Sri Chinmoy, an Indian teacher and artist who died in 2007.

NO FAILURE
No failure, no failure.
Failure is the shadow
Of success.
No failure, no failure.
Failure is the changing body
Of success.
No failure, no failure.
Failure is the fast approaching train
Of the greatest success.

FAILURE AND SUCCESS
Defeat
Is a bad failure.
Despair
Is a worse failure.
Not to try again
Is the worst failure.
Victory
Is a good success.
Progress
Is a better success.
Surrender
Is the best success.

Any thoughts on this topic? Please share them in the comments!

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Topics

Michael Krigsman is a recognized authority on the causes and prevention of IT failures.

Disclosure

Michael Krigsman

Michael Krigsman writes and speaks about technology in a manner that most observers consider to be fair and balanced. Michael believes that writing about IT failures, which often have complex causes, creates a unique obligation to be reasonable and accurate in both reporting and analysis.

Michael maintains active personal and professional relationships with enterprise technology buyers, vendors, analyst firms (or individual analysts), consultants, and system integrators. As CEO of Asuret, Michael sells and delivers paid services to members of these same groups.

Vendors regularly reimburse Michael's out-of-pocket travel expenses to attend industry conferences and events. Conference organizers frequently waive entry fees when Michael attends industry events. Michael often speaks at industry conferences and events.

He is a member of the Enterprise Irregulars, a loose association of consultants, investors, industry representatives, analysts, and users of enterprise software.

For daily updates on Michael's activities, follow him on Twitter.

Biography

Michael Krigsman

Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a consulting company dedicated to reducing technology implementation failures. Asuret's suite of software tools improve the success rate of enterprise software deployments by quantifying and measuring governance issues that cause most project failures. Michael led the research effort underlying Asuret's model of collective intelligence and its practical application to reducing IT failures in consulting environments. He is a recognized authority on the causes and prevention of IT failures and is frequently quoted in the press on IT project and related CIO issues. He is considered an enterprise software industry "influencer" and provides advice to technology buyers, vendors, and services firms.

Previously, Michael served as CEO of Cambridge Publications, which develops tools and processes for software implementations and related business practice automation projects. Michael has been involved with hundreds of software development projects, for companies ranging from small startups to Fortune 500 organizations. Michael graduated with an M.B.A. from Boston University and a B.A. from Bard College. He is a Board member of the America's Cup Hall of Fame and the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, RI.

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Negative attitudes toward failure are taught
Get-Smart 29th Jun 2010
Our society, mainly through our schools, punishes most failures. We are taught from a very early age to "do it right or don't do it at all". Failure in our daily lives rarely is a life-or-death prospect, yet fear of failure has been ingrained in us. That conditioning has served me very badly throughout my life and something that is extremely difficult to overcome.

Even though it takes higher reasoning abilities to know the difference between when failure is insignificant and when it is life-threatening, teaching that reasoning would serve our society better. Prolific inventors (like Edison, as mentioned by another poster) have learned the difference and equate "failure" with simply "a different outcome", sometimes with useful benefits (sticky notes, anyone?). We would do well to learn the same.

Would anybody care to share their experiences in redefining failure to help those of us who are still struggling?
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RE: Positive reflections on failure
tomasz.stolarczyk@... 27th Jun 2010
Failure can be seen as just a label for sth what has just happened. Yet the conclusions one draws from it can be pretty different. Edison-way: "Ijust discovered another way how not to do sth" or doom-and-gloom-way: "I knew it from the beginning it won't work". So negative attitudes are just some out of many ways how to interpret one's failing at doing sth. Just re-flect , see why it went that way, change the conditions and do it (again and again) until you have the working configuration.
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RE: Positive reflections on failure
Mike Gammage 28th Jun 2010
Michael, thanks for sharing this.

I love the idea of poetry as a valid approach to every aspect of life, even IT failures.

And I agree that fear of failure can be desperately oppressive and stultifying, for individuals and organizations alike.

Mike
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Not the first time but rare...
sruburch@... 29th Jun 2010
This is great, when you stop and think about the words of any great man or woman regarding success and failure they are congruent with this poem.

Great achievers and thinkers alike all say the same thing.

So here, gratefully Mr.Krigsman has shared through poetry yet another way to view what we call failure.

Kevin B.
0 Votes
+ -
Our society, mainly through our schools, punishes most failures. We are taught from a very early age to "do it right or don't do it at all". Failure in our daily lives rarely is a life-or-death prospect, yet fear of failure has been ingrained in us. That conditioning has served me very badly throughout my life and something that is extremely difficult to overcome.

Even though it takes higher reasoning abilities to know the difference between when failure is insignificant and when it is life-threatening, teaching that reasoning would serve our society better. Prolific inventors (like Edison, as mentioned by another poster) have learned the difference and equate "failure" with simply "a different outcome", sometimes with useful benefits (sticky notes, anyone?). We would do well to learn the same.

Would anybody care to share their experiences in redefining failure to help those of us who are still struggling?

Join the conversation!

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