Friday, July 9, 2010

Failure

From My Perspective - - -

Is failure always final? Is failure always fatal? Can one who was deemed a failure recover and gain some level of achievement and success? Is failure a scar that never vanishes and brandishes one for the rest of his/her life? In a publication: Why Smart Executives Fail by Sidney Finkelstein – the following is stated – “What are the core underlying reasons for why smart executives fail? What are the destructive syndromes that cut across all types of great corporate mistakes and are the real root cause of failure? We found corporate failures to have many parents, but the most critical of these were breakdowns in how executives perceived reality for their companies, how people within an organization faced up to their reality, how information and control systems in organizations were mismanaged, and how organizational leaders adopted spectacularly unsuccessful habits…The causes of failure are not because executives are unintelligent…The causes of failure are not due to unforeseeable events…The causes of failure are not executional errors; executional errors are mere symptoms that hide a deeper explanation for why things go wrong. The causes of failure are not any of the other simple explanations that question executive motivation, leadership ability, honesty, or resource abundance…”

The summary of Why Smart Executives Fail is given in this paragraph: “Executive mindset failures are at the root of most large-scale business disasters. In fact, one of the inescapable conclusions from the research program is that billions of dollars are lost because of a kind of "cognitive failure." Executives will regularly send their corporation off in completely the wrong direction or fail to restructure it the way they should, because they have made a fundamental error in the way they are thinking about the opportunities and problems their business faces…” One can conclude that some of the reasons for failure are: (1) the lack of Foundational Principles; (2) the inability to be Flexible; (3) the perniciousness of “we know – you don’t” that prevents corporate and administrative heads from being open to a better course than the one being followed. Perniciousness means: “that which causes insidious harm or ruin; that which ruinous; injurious; hurtful; that which is deadly; fatal…” Proverbs 16:18 gives an underlying cause for personal and corporate failure: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

On a human level, it is easy to conclude that some people will probably succeed and others will more than likely fail. There was a child who was reared in a home where he was told he was not wanted; was shown evidence of what had been used to abort him; and who often was told that he would never amount to anything. In such a situation, it would be easy for one to surrender and to set out to live up to those words and that expectation. This is perhaps one of the underlying causes of a ghetto mentality. Children are birthed because they represent a welfare amount and certain other benefits – not so much that they will be trained and encouraged to escape that which is detrimental to any degree of success. At any rate – the above child had a very few people who made some effort in his behalf – to encourage him and spur him on to be more than he had been told he would ever be – a school teacher; a sanitation worker (who would be a lifetime friend); a woman who patiently showed him a human love he had never really experienced. There was also a spiritual challenge and commitment. Words of Scripture that offered hope, such as Isaiah 40:28-30, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted…” That partially describes this person who felt he was unwanted and unneeded; without any direction and lowly motivated. Was there any possibility such a person could break his shackles of failure? Was there any light at the end of his tunnel? Long story, short – he went on to earn three degrees. The verse in Isaiah 40:31 has proven itself in his life – “but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Failure does not need to be final or fatal! You don’t have to be a zero – nothing! God doesn’t make junk – and you were made in His image! Don’t give up – not yet! Consider these things with me!

No comments: