Service of Failure
July 6th, 2010
Categories: Blame, Cheating, Deception, Disappointment, Failure
In an anonymous comment on my last post, “Service of Independence Day,” [July 1], an articulate writer noted: “As my pediatrician is fond of quoting, ‘Without failure there can be no success.’” I’ve been planning to write about failure for a while. With social network ESP at work, now’s the time.
As I approached the topic, the first thing I thought of was that we can’t have weaknesses. Note a typical job interview where the interviewer asks, “What are your weaknesses?” The applicant replies: “I’m a workaholic; I am too organized; I love working 13 hours a day when I know I shouldn’t and I hate vacations.”
The next thing that came to mind was the culture in some workplaces where no matter what you do, never, ever admit to failure. Sell one widget in a year when projections were for 1,000 and somehow you twist your report to show that have met your goal. Politicians always meet theirs, don’t they?
I’m from the school of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and again and again,” and then, if it isn’t working, I realize that I’ve done everything possible and the project or relationship or concept isn’t working or didn’t work. Giving it my all allows me to sleep at night once I’m over the disappointment/devastation/dust-off period.
[One exception is failure associated with anything electronic. I don't know about you but when something goes wrong with my computer, smartphone or other device, I sound like my mother asking myself, "What did you do?" More than half the time I did nothing and it's not my malfunction.]
More about failure: I set up and staffed a client’s booth at an industry trade show. The client was a trade association and the marketing committee wanted me to entice attendees to participate in an industry-wide initiative. Trouble is the attendees were at the show to find and buy product, meet with vendors and maybe look for a job. They weren’t the slightest bit interested in any program this or any other association was peddling. I became emboldened after day one which generated little traffic and less interest so the second day, I stood out in the middle of the floor in front of the booth with a big smile and spoke with anyone who came down the aisle. Very not me, but I was desperate. The results were appalling.
Not long after, when another trade association-client, representing a different industry, had the bright idea to do the same, without naming names, I told them of my previous experience and the reasons for failure. The marketing committee ignored me and went ahead. Fortunately, I wasn’t asked to staff this booth. In spite of my warning, the committee members who staffed the booth were shocked when they reported dismal results. [I didn't say boo.]
You hope to turn a negative into a positive and label a glitch like this under “experience.” That’s the success part? I also learned that like some children who must test what a hot stove feels like no matter how effectively an adult warns them that touching it will hurt, some people won’t listen to and/or learn from other people’s failures.
A friend from third grade’s father used to say, “It’s what you don’t think of that will trip you up,” which has challenged me all my life to try to think of everything possible before a project or event so that I clear all decks leaving time to address unexpected bombshells. Still, sometimes, things fail.
These days, it happens a lot. You try to invest prudently and intelligently and surprise! Someone at the company–a household name with solid credentials and reputation–has cheated, lied or exaggerated. You get burned, lose your money and are told that “Investing is high risk–just like gambling, don’t you know,” in the same patronizing tone of voice you hear when a person who has insulted you tells you that they were “just joking.”
Do you agree with the pediatrician who says that without failure, there can be no success? In a society that doesn’t acknowledge failure, has it ever played into your success?
I agree that failure can be sobering, and if one can overcome it, strength and resolve can be the upshot. Tiger Woods is the current stellar example. The world’s number-one golfer is becoming an embarrassment on the links. Can he turn it around? Salvage his high-flying reputation? I can’t imagine someone with his skills and his focused determination just packing up his clubs and moseying off.
Closer to home, the author of this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Tinkers,” endured rejections from 28 publishers before finding a home for his work…which has become a paperback best-seller. Failure, or at least a feeling of failure, may be crushing at first, but it has the potential to fire a person’s ambition and certainty.
I remember reading, years ago, that Tony Curtis once said he’d like to kiss everyone who told him he’d never make it as an actor. Frankly, I think they were right; as far as I’m concerned, his only real successes were in two films: “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweet Smell of Success.” But Tony persevered, and good for him. Good for anyone who takes failure as being impersonal and not finite damning.
That’s key, Mervyn, not to let failure crush you.
Sometimes I try to put myself in another person’s shoes–take Eliot Spitzer–and I wonder if I could go out again in public without getting a face change. While I don’t admire anything about Mr. Spitzer, I think his moxy is amazing. Didn’t I read that he is going to be a TV talk show host?
As for Tiger, I heard sportscaster Len Berman on the radio say that Tiger’s trainer said that the best day of his life was the day he signed on Tiger as a client and the second to best day was when he resigned the account [or was fired, I forget]. This trainer noted that Tiger felt that anyone who had dealings with him should be honored and that this, alone, should be sufficient compensation. I’d heard a version of this a while back–that Tiger never tipped for that reason. I wonder how this turn of mind accepts failure and turns it into success.
Jeanne,
I’ve known plenty of failure. I didn’t ever like it one bit, and it never did me a damn bit of good.
However, it gives arrogant people something to get over. Take the case of the Tiger you and Merv mention. As a compulsively passionate former player of the game, I’m gloating, which is both ungenerous and unfair of me as his present miseries were brought about by something having nothing to do with the game. But fair is fair, he was a lousy sportsman and deserves everything coming to him.
I agree with Mervyn. Tony Curtis was an unattractive actor without flexibility. I thought Lemon was far better in “Some Like it Hot,” but Curtis was superb and appeared totally in character in “Sweet Smell of Success,” which he wasn’t. Actually, I suspect he was a nice guy.
Simon
I don’t know, Simon…every time you picked yourself up after failure and kept on going you proved your mettle. And I get the feeling that while you hold a microscope up to yourself you see a line of failures but that others wouldn’t be as hard on you and wouldn’t agree.
I dislike the adage “nice guys finish last,” and therefore am thrilled that Tiger, who has a reputation for being the worst sport, is getting his. Hopefully he will learn humility and will be a better player from that point of view even if he no longer is a constant winner.
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.
JM,
I have a hunch that you are a superb salesperson.
Jeanne:
Your post brought back memories of looking for work decades ago as a new college grad. I’d heard the same questions over and over again from countless interviewers and I thought I was saying all of the right things.
I was asked back for second interviews but hadn’t landed any offers and I was getting discouraged. I was looking for an entry level position in publishing, willing to work long hours and weekends and hoping to earn enough money to pay my half of the rent for a studio apartment in NJ and yet I wasn’t being offered anything.
By the time I’d heard, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” for what seemed like the 100th time, I threw caution out the door and answered, “President of the company.” I started at that company the next week–in the training pool, not as president.
Aha, Nancy!
An antidote to failure is to change your pattern of behavior! I think you’ve identified something very useful. Hope everyone is listening.
The pediatrician is right in as much as there can’t be one without the other. We live in a world of opposites.
Now the real question: What is success? The mere fact that one is wealthy, manufactures an internationally known gizmo, stars in movies, does not make one a success. Just think of all the human freaks known to exist in that category. It would be a huge step forward if society were able to up the bar and acknowledge true successes, such as the volunteers and charitable workers among us. They do not seek headlines, and are quite possibly worth a thousand times more than those who do.
I’m sick to death hearing about so called “brilliant” prodigies, who in the privacy of their homes, drink themselves to death, cause misery to their families, and kick the cat. Like it or not, these are our biggest flops. Second to these sorry souls are those who promote them as “successes.”
I agree with you, Lucrezia.
Along with those who support charities with elbow grease and experience as well as money, there are those who take on difficult jobs, such as caring for sick or elderly people, do magnificent work for little pay in comparison to the stars you refer to whom so many revere, take on huge responsibility and far too often don’t see health and well-being for their patients at the end of a project. Are they failures? I should say not!