Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
February 2012
January 2012
- Offensive Advertising, Increased Sales?
- I Sold Out For Millions, Then Worked At McDonald's
- Steve Jobs on Failure
- The Famous Western Failure
- Thank Goodness for Drug Addicts
December 2011
- It's a Wonderful Failure
- Stadium Destroyed, Reborn
- Failure to Trust the Astronauts
- Failure and the Baggy Pants Tradition
- Failure at The Happiest Place on Earth
- Saving What Was Lost
- FailureBank: A Social Learning Utility
November 2011
- A Thanksgiving Failure
- Harriet Tubman's Clever Lie
- The Failures of Lemieux
- Failed to Return a Text
- Admitting Failure
- A Leaders Job: Support Failure
October 2011
- [VIDEO] Mistakes with Tasty Dum Dums
- Failure and the Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Failure Goes Digital
- Using AIDS to Fight Cancer
- Victory Despite Obstacles
September 2011
Failure to Communicate
Everyone has had the experience of being certain that another person has ignored their instructions. What’s the right way to bring success out of this obvious failure?
The temptation is to prove that you’re right. In this modern age, it’s likely your initial request was probably documented in an email or a voicemail. If someone discards a direct instruction and tries to ask you a question that you’ve already answered, who wouldn’t want to rake them over the coals with the truth?
Doing so, however, will likely be a disaster. Failure may be the secret to success, but piling failure on top of failure is probably a bad move. No one likes to be shown exactly how they were wrong.
Instead, a helpful approach may be attribute the problem to something other than the person you want to accuse. Maybe the voicemail message was garbled or lost. Maybe your email went to spam. Perhaps someone else inadvertently provided conflicting information at the same time, which clouded the facts.
It’s also possible that you weren’t totally crystal clear. After all, the person dispensing the instructions probably doesn’t need them. Isn’t the individual who gives directions most likely to inadvertently leave out those steps that seem most obvious?
If someone fails to follow instructions, don’t double the failure by jumping down their throat. Instead, give them the opportunity to gallantly recover. Success comes when we stop dwelling on mistakes and focus on where we can grow and achieve.
