The One Behavior That Guarantees Failure
Letting fear of failure stop you
from asking for what you want ensures you won't get it.
I
once sat on the board of a company that was trying to reconfigure the financial
relationship that it had with its customers. The CEO was trying to transition
from a work-for-hire model to one in which his company co-owned the products it
produced and could resell them to other customers.
"They will never agree to those
terms," the CEO told me. "We have tried many times to get it from
other customers. No one ever accepts it."
"So are you unwilling to
even put it on the table?" I asked. His silence gave me my answer.
"OK, I understand," I said. "But this problem is not about them;
it's about you."
My diagnosis was that the CEO had a
stubborn case of Auto-Preemption Syndrome, a fancy name I concocted to describe
a common behavior; when you convince yourself that it is impossible to succeed
and then guarantee failure by not even trying.
"APS" causes brain freeze.
Every one of us exhibits APS from time to time; we decide we're not going to
exercise because we know we won't stick with it, or we never put together the
business plan because we're sure no one will fund the idea.
Chasing
Your Tail
Although delaying your new fitness
plan might not derail your entire life, this kind of behavior is lethal in the
entrepreneurial world. Business success is dependent upon succeeding, not
avoiding. Is there a cure? As the saying goes, the first step is recognizing
the problem.
APS behavior causes circuitous
thinking, which results in "progress block," the entrepreneurs'
version of writer's block. You become convinced a particular approach is
futile, thus you refuse to even attempt it. Failure is guaranteed. To break this
cycle, we borrow a page from a classic brainstorming technique.
Every formal brainstorming session
begins with the group listing ideas. No one is allowed to opine on the
worthiness of the ideas. The point is to create the free flow of thoughts and
concepts. Every idea is admitted, no matter how far-fetched. Once the list is
compiled, the merits of the ideas are discussed and edited. By taking no out of
the initial list development, you are likely to surface some new approaches to
break your progress block.
Suspension
of Disbelief
The real key to swatting down APS is
the ability to suspend disbelief. There is a famous legend about how President
John F. Kennedy managed naysayers when proposing to make a manned mission to
the moon a national goal. Prior to his epic "We choose to go to the
moon..." speech, he had to vet the do-ability of such an audacious goal.
Not surprisingly, all of his technology and science advisors proclaimed the
feat virtually impossible. So JFK rounded up the best and brightest from
various agencies for a brainstorming session. The lore is that he instructed
them not to tell him why it couldn't be done but to humor him and make a list
of everything needed to make it possible. This forced the experts to suspend
disbelief and break down the goal into its actionable components. The result
was a blueprint and a budget. The rest is history.
Make this tactic a part of your best
practices, and you will inoculate your team from APS and clear the way for
success.
Believing
in Yes
I used these brainstorming
techniques to help the CEO I referenced power through his deal negotiations.
Our brainstorming session produced several compromise positions, but none were
optimal. I then proposed something outrageous: Why not just be prepared to walk
from the deal? My rationale was that at some point, we would have to stand our
ground if we truly wanted to change our business model. Why not just do it now?
It wouldn't be any easier next time. Plus, we could then negotiate from
strength.
The CEO took my suggestion, and the
outcome was good. It took some additional months of negotiating and, at one
point, suspending conversations before the customer truly understood our
resolve. By fighting off our APS, we gave it a shot and succeeded. Had we
allowed ourselves to continue to believe it was impossible, we would not have
tried, and failure would have been certain.
BY Barry Schuler http://www.inc.com/barry-schuler/the-one-behavior-that-guarantees-failure.html
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