Creating Passion-Driven Teams: How to Stop Micromanaging and Motivate People to Top Performance

Chapter 13

Failure Is an Option

With all due respect to Gene Kranz’s fine book about NASA (titled Failure is Not an Option) and the fact that in some cases it’s truly not, most of the time, lack of success is bearable and should be considered a learning opportunity.

Sadly, people who “fail” are often castigated as losers who are to be shunned. What a tragic loss. What an initiative-killing, demoralizing choice. Every successful person I know has experienced failure. The same is true about even the best-run, fervently passionate teams. I’m told it was President Theodore Roosevelt who said, “Show me a man who doesn’t make mistakes and I’ll show you a man who doesn’t do anything.”

Most mistakes, oversights, and missed goals are not as serious as ...