Set-up-to-Fail Syndrome

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Getting There

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.

—Mikhail Baryshnikov

WHEN DISCUSSING the boss’s role in interrupting and preventing the set-up-to-fail syndrome, we have tried to provide actionable advice grounded in the research we and others have conducted on this subject. For managers to be able to implement these recommendations in real life, the advice must be concrete enough for them to visualize what it might look like in practice. But the fact that a piece of advice is concrete does not make it easy to implement, particularly under stressful or difficult conditions. We have tried to show how bosses can try to decrease the perceived stress associated with dealing ...