Failure that is rationalized is success that is deferred.
Winning in business is difficult. Yet, succeeding isn’t as much a mystery as it is an exercise of discipline in executing proven principles.
Those who are undisciplined will eventually be revealed – disciplined – by the market.
Excuses given for poor results are often rhetorically convincing to those who are also in the failing system. Misery loves company. This is why failing systems attract – and are attractive to – those who lack discipline.
Stepping up, owning poor results, saying, “What we’re doing isn’t working, isn’t good enough” can be a scary truth for a leader who is prioritizing personal safety over that of the community.
Here are just three ways struggling leaders rationalize poor performance – and the hard truths successful leaders demonstrate.
- Failing leaders get seduced by passion and the curtain of a can-do attitude. Successful leaders know that passionate employees who possess mediocre talent… deliver mediocre results. Top talent that is also passionate is a requirement of success.
- If the industry is down, failing leaders hide in the crowd. (“Everyone is failing. So, it isn’t us.”) Leaders of organizations that win sooner during downturns in an economy seize macro-challenges in the market to disrupt themselves or evolve their unique value proposition. (As mom and dad taught us: Just because ‘everyone’s doing it’ doesn’t mean you should.)
- When customers aren’t buying, failing leaders blame the customer. “They chose not to do anything…” or “They went with a competitor…” Successful leaders own their results by finishing these sentences with “…because we didn’t demonstrate their investment was worth the value.”
The challenge: Leaders who allow their results to define them are compelled to control the narrative, often become control freaks and burn out at faster rates.
Owning your poor results, however, doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It means you have a discipline required to win.
