• Home
  • The Book
  • The Author
  • Events
  • The Blog
  • Failures Within
  • Contact

Seek to Misconstrue   + a

Failure: The Blog  

August 2018

  • When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
  • Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
  • London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
  • Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
  • Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start

July 2018

  • Fear This Instead Of Failure
  • Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
  • A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
  • The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
  • Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti

June 2018

  • A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
  • US Army Embraces Mistakes
  • Blocking A Hymn
  • Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
  • [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed

May 2018

  • 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
  • Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
  • This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
  • 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
  • MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process

April 2018

  • Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
  • Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
  • Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
  • Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
  • Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged

March 2018

  • Superman Couldn't Fly
  • This School Shares Failures
  • Jim Croce's Parents Hoped He Would Fail

[More archives...]

« The Innovative Power of Lying
Productivity Through Self Denial? »

Harvard Business Review: Get Ready to Fail

September 2nd, 2012 - by Robby Slaughter

A writer connected to the world’s top business school recently pointed out that you’re going to fail. You might as well get ready for it now!

Scott Edginer writes:

You will fail. It’s inevitable, so you might as well begin preparing for it now. The failure may be small, like, say, making a mistake on a client engagement. Or it may be quite grand, like losing a job you valued. How you handle that failure can raise or lower the risks of failing again — and shape your legacy as a leader.

Harvard and failure
Photo © Flickr User Swijn

In the article, he points out a variety of themes related to managing failure. Most interestingly, Edginer demonstrates the importance of failure by admitting weakness:

Get some help. Feeling down is normal. Prolonged periods of depression and despair are not. If you find you can’t get into that growth-oriented mind-set no matter how much of a break you take, find some way to express your feelings in the company of someone you trust. That could be a friend, a colleague, a mentor, or a therapist. There’s no shame in seeking help when you’ve suffered a setback. And therapy no longer carries the stigma of being damaged that it used to. To prove that, I’ll admit here that I’ve gone to therapy at times in my life when I’ve felt particularly down, and it has helped immensely. See, no stigma.

How about you, are you willing to admit that you need help?

Share on TumblrSubmit to redditShare via email Share

Related Posts

  1. [VIDEO] Failing to Success / Harvard Business Review
    Trader Joe’s president Doug Rauch describes his company as one that “failed its way to success.” In a one minute video, he shares insight on why mistakes may be the most important of all business traits.
  2. Prison Beats Harvard
    Here’s a message you don’t hear too often: apparently a Harvard degree is not a good deal, compared with becoming a corrections officer.
  3. Your Business Card is Terrible
    An Indianapolis-based marketing company is running a monthly contest. They are highlighting some truly awful business cards for a makeover.
  4. Blue Lobster Fail
    Most lobsters are a darkish red color, and many of them end up as one half of a tasty surf-and-turf special. The rare lobster, however, is cursed with a blue tint.
  5. Need a Review Copy?
    Failure needs reviews. That means people have to read the book, tell us what they think, and then those reviews go out into the world.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


© Copyright 2009-2021 Robby Slaughter - All Rights Reserved • Theme from Web Considerations, LLC