Q: I was assigned to a project that was a big failure. How do I recover?
A: Have you explored the following questions?
- What is the gap between expected and actual project outcomes?
- Did someone actually say the project was a “big failure”? A person of influence? Authority? Your boss?
Now consider:
- Did you fail? Or did the project fail?
- What did you (your team, your organization) learn from the experience?
- How will this experience add value to your business acumen?
Act now: How you respond to failure is more important that the specific incident. Go through the checklist: Did you have the competence to achieve the project? Is your credibility intact with your boss, peers, and key stakeholders? And, finally, do you have the confidence to accept responsibility, grow from the experience and move on?
Need inspiration? Here are three quotations to keep in mind as you move forward:
- Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)
- If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. (Woody Allen)
- Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison
