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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...]

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The Importance of Negative Thinking

May 10th, 2016 - by Alyssa Shea

What do you think is the most important part of being a CEO of a company? Do you think it’s to constantly be positive? You may be surprised to find out that being negative has been becoming a popular way of thinking.

One example is calling a meeting about a new project that has yet to launch and letting everyone know you’ve already failed. The next step is to figure out where they went wrong. But how could this make sense? They haven’t failed yet! This kind of thinking was designed by Gary Klein, called premortem.

positive negative thinkingPhoto © Flickr User kateausburn

“In a premortem, a project manager must envision what could go wrong—what will go wrong—in advance, before starting. Why? Far too many ambitious undertakings fail for preventable reasons. Far too many people don’t have a backup plan because they refuse to consider that something might not go exactly as they wish.”

This type of thinking could revolutionize how we work. Planning for future failings can be helpful!

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Related Posts

  1. A Positive Caused By Something Negative
    Normally we think of an amplifier as being something used to to increase output. But it turns out one of the most important and successful types of amplifiers is one that uses gain as negative feedback to oppose the original signal.
  2. Why Negative Comments Are Your Greatest Assets
    Today’s post on the Failure The Book blog comes from Jenn Lisak. She’s here to tell us why the nastiest comments made online are among the most useful:

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