I Give You Permission to Fail

Failure can cost a lot.....make sure you get your money's worth by learning the lesson it has taught you...

I never fail, I make a lot of features to enhance what was designed! & if you say it with enough conviction people will accept it.

Bazzer

Unfortunately, management too often utters that statement with absolutely NO intention of supporting the granted "...right to fail..." -- it's binary, you succeed or fail with your company value being tied to the results.

Failure is NOT an option, it is an employer assigned albatross.

"Houston, we have a problem. I appreciate your permission to fail. But, that won't get us back to Earth. Any other words of wisdom?"

Yes Dennis #3, ...and they could have added " ....thanks Houston - but we didn't give you permission to fail - you just helped yourself to it - and you expect us to pay the bill! - nice one"

Everybody gets a cupcake...but sprinkles are for winners.

Many don't understand the implications of the following words:

• Responsible: able to respond. All individuals are able to respond. However, that is a backwards-looking activity. Good Engineers are forward looking, using the lessons from the past to make sure that prevention takes precedence over cure.
• Culpable: the recipient of blame. Blame is not a useful concept in Engineering. Blame is associated with the Legal profession, which is said to be the third step up from Prostitution and Estate Agency in some rankings.
• Liable: the payer of compensation. Insurance is a way of covering the commercial risks though it cannot cover the criminal ones.

Many confuse the meaning of the first two and are blind to the implications of the third.

Apollo 13 was a failure: a successful failure and a beautiful example of teamwork reaching a triumph over adversity, as it turned out.

Recommended book reading: Gene Krantz [the Flight Director of the Apollo 13 mission], "Failure is not an option", available retail from any number of outlets.

Recommended viewing: "Apollo 13", the feature film that dramatises very well the crisis, available retail from any number of outlets.

More like partial failure. The mission was to send three people to the moon, land two on the surface and return the three safely home. The moment the fuel cell blew, the mission changed to get the three back safely. The revised mission was a remarkable success.

I would compare that to Shackleton's trip to the south pole where it was planned for failure from the get-go and then spun in the press as a stunning success for managing to survive the consequences of bad planning and bad choices. A great example of the inability to cure stupid, but managing to survive by the skin of your teeth. He never made it to Antarctica, sank his ship, abandoned most of his crew to their own devices for nearly a year, but he did get a good book out of it.

<...did get a good book out of it....> Oh, that's all right, then...

"We've got redundancies to make ...you're fired..."

"What? ..can't hear you...noisy workshop"

"You're fired..."

"Sorry, still can't make out what you are saying...."

"YOU'RE FIRED..."

"No, sorry, still having trouble hearing you...you'll have to shout."

"I AM SHOUTING - YOU'RE FIRED - get it- FIRED."

"Sorry - say that again - louder"

"....forget it, I'll sack someone who's not deaf"

I have failed 999 times, but it is not a loss!! I now know 999 ways to not succeed at the task.

I don't remember the exact quote attributed to Thomas Edison, but the above has the idea of it.

Bill