​You must have heard many times of the term "premature success."

Well, there's also what I call premature failure. 

Premature failure is when you just started to fail and not when you have failed and tried hundred of times but didn't find an ounce of success or simply an opening for a reiteration.

Premature failure is giving up way too early when in fact, the pains of any early startup or journey or first few steps are always longer, harder, and perseverance-required than in any other stages. It is just what it is. An indication of something that must be done, evaluated, and relaunched again. 

Realistically our concept of failure is flawed in a sense that we always have high expectations of our initial actions. We allow this momentary discovery elude us of the benefits of the real results that come after many tries and retries.

We see a well-polished book and we thought that the author must have written it in one go while watching Netflix or a new app that we install in our tablets and phones had been imagined and developed with a matter of months just by talking to friends. We seldom see the behind the scenes of product development of many companies whose tasks is to lower customer barriers to acquiring, using, and marketing their product for them. We often don't look at how the after-office hours of business would look like when this means revamping everything that they think great about their product to build a better one. Start-ups know this by heart. But the non-profit sector doesn't, not even those who are serving a purpose-centred mission.

There is an idealistic notion that they should be successful at their campaigns because they have lofty goals. That the public should be donating more, supporting more, the government giving more budgets because the needs are greater and that squares a lot of the wrongness in society. When that didn't happen, they blame it externally rather than look within their own limitations.

Honestly, this idealism leads to regular failure. Regular failure is what we need. Regular failure is premature failure. Regular failure becomes the necessary ritual to attain the next level of competency. 

The culture in the purpose sector should be stripped away from idealism to pragmatism. Regular failure is under appreciated. Premature failure is not the time to make a direction-changing course of action yet. 

Ask more questions and listen attentively to market signals. Go back to the drawing board and recalibrate. Stay in the learning mode until you get it right. And when you get it right, do you really want to change course? 

You want an honest feedback so that you can improve your work.

The first group will tell you what you want to hear, all the good things sans the not-so-good ones for fear of discouraging you.

The second group will tell you all the worst things that you have done and how it negatively impacted them. Fine, if that is the truth.

Yet, we live with this two polar opposites all the time without the real benefit of honest constructive feedback, in our workplace, in organizations, and sometimes in our own families.

It cannot be that worst but it can't be that too great either. For improvement's sake, it is better to be honest than to be lying about someone's performance. However, how you deliver this is very critical to the outcome you're seeking. 

What does it take to create an atmosphere where honest feedback is taken and given constructively?

• Trust and non-judgement approach
• Purpose-driven conversation aimed at improvement
• Provide detailed examples and detailed suggestions for improvement
• Thank and encourage the person for recognizing the need to change for the better
• Offer support to sustain these changes (if you were able to)
• Offer praise and encouragement when the person is exhibiting efforts to sustain these changes

For some situations, you will never know where you actually sit, having two of these polar opposites received from different quarters. Perhaps, the truth is somewhere in the middle.  It is up to you to weigh both things. What matters is that you're improving everyday while others are busy taking successful people down. 

I was binge-watching The Offer this week and I can't imagine that when they're making The Godfather film in the 70s, the executives have a way different vision for it. It was proposed that it will be set in the 70s not a period film, shot in Kansas or St.  Louis, or with a young and cheap director (which they did), actors that can work for cheap or for free, and more. The Godfather as we now know is one of the best American films ever produced and highest grossing film of all time.

There was the Mafia disturbance and interference, sabotage inside the production units, difficult actors and crew members, logistical issues, budget pressures, and other millions of minutiae problems but the logical business mindset clash against the creatives is a major highlight for me. It wouldn't be the Godfather that we know or at least the shadow of that success if it not for the creatives standing up for the authenticity and integrity of the film. It will not be a success if the executives had their way about the logo, the budget, their preferred actors, the locations, and even how it will be marketed and distributed. The dalliance with the Mafia is a film of its own and the way it was handled was, unfortunately the best possible course of action, albeit Machiavellian. The business context set the stage for how these films were supposed to make money that will save Paramount from being sold off to a bargain and leave more for the future viability of its corporate owner. 

There are many management lessons here for which this page won't be enough. How ironic it is that film businesses are creative businesses; they are meant to marry the business logic of efficiency and financial performance using the creative breakthrough ideas of their time as a distinct competitive advantage. While these sounds easy to do, the Offer allows to understand that it boils down to how they see themselves as partners of the venture that either had to sink or swim together or get out of the way for the other's success. While in the film the business guys weren't one-dimensional and turned the other leaf, in reality, so many of the films of the past and the present are produced on ruthless business criteria as a hedge for failure. As the audience, we just don't know the costs of these wars inside these organizations. But we know that we have yet to see another Godfather or another film with both smashing commercial success and unparalleled artistry in decades.

My quiet January became dramatic because I let fear in. When you're trying to bring about change and everything is going nicely,  fear would creep in and induce a lot of paranoia that's unnecessary. This comes in the form of self-doubt, overthinking and defensiveness. A working relationship became mired with hypotheticals and what-ifs.

Why good changes do not stick? Aside from resistance to change because of confusion, misunderstanding, lack of buy-in, addressing  the emotional issues from the change dynamic is key. 

Fear is the number emotion that will hold organizations and leaders back from their planned approach. 
Courage and the absence of it, will make or break a change prospects. 

If you let in fear for only a short time, you let paralysis in and overthinking which will derail you.

If you let in fear for a long time, you will renege on your commitments and undervalue your own worth.

If you let in fear intervene in your progress, you're undermining your achievements.
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Address issues as they arise and not pre-empt them in a way that will sabotage your progress.

Trust me,  once I realized it's all about fear,  it' easy to manage the rest.

If leaders are scared, they make stupid decisions.

I'm talking about cost-cutting measures in time of pandemic. If you cut everything that costs money, then you don't know what your financial (and organizational too!) values are.

Stewardship is not about being stingy and operating on costs, it's about operating on value. 

Anything that involves increasing resilience and building lasting effects on your customers and constituencies should be nurtured and developed, even in climate of distress and uncertainty. Values-based organization do not operate on fear-based calculations, much less allow values creep.

The best leaders in organizations retain and protect their strongest assets, which are inimitable and very hard to reconstruct. In times of stress, these assets work like magic. They provide the rest and bounce factors for staff and customers to thrive and not just survive. 

Cut everything that moves and you're cutting your oxygen source. 

Ever Given, the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal a few months ago got released by the Egyptian authorities this week. The fiasco had caused major supply chain crisis in many parts of the world where hundred  ships were lined-up waiting for weeks. It has 22,000 containers on board, late but successfully arrived in Rotterdam. The ship company is facing thousands of lawsuits from the affected parties.

The stuck image of the ship reminds us of the agony being in the position of immobility. There is nowhere to go but out, even incrementally. 

To get out of this mess is to first acknowledge that you're circling along the wagon. The second step is to know the cause.

The cause could be an insistence with a tired approach, fear of failure or success, or the method was inappropriate for the task. Whatever the cause maybe, find it and address the problem.

Third, create the simplest strategies to get you out the stuck mode. It means calling an external expert as a sounding board. It could be listening to a valid feedback from a colleague, or it could be retracing your steps and giving it another go.  Sitting in a blank page is not a good thing. But knowing that help is within reach and that the right mindset is key could flush you out of the hole.

With a massive flotilla of tugboats and the tide on their side, Ever Given was freed at last.

Don't wait for something that will not come. Summon help or create your own tide! 

Frustrated, defeated, and feeling that there are no options left but to quit?

This post is not about that, but when does quitting becomes an opportunity to get on track or refine one's vision of life, work, career, or business.

Quitting or the process of quitting opens up the possibility to give chance to reinvention and self-affirmation;

Quitting or the process of quitting clarifies your own contributions, the strength that you brought to the table and the qualities and assets that you can take wherever you go;

Quitting will identify who the real friends are and who aren't: they will provide the insights of your contribution without you asking them for it;

Quitting releases the drive to make the most of what you had and gathers the strength to move on with things that you want to continue building and enhancing;

Quitting earlier than later means that you are taking control and that frees you up to do the things that you love and want to do;

Quitting can be a dramatic exit which you can leverage in an organization where the stakes are high and you can make a big difference out of leaving;

Quitting does not mean that you will not try again in the future. It is not definitive as long as your reasons are clear and that you don't burn the bridges to future interactions.

Before you quit, ask yourself, how can my quitting helped me become a better person, professional, and entrepreneur? 

Quitting isn't always a bad move! It can be the most liberating to do when you know how to bring the best out of a seemingly bad situation. 
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