Seth Godin | Harvard Business Review, 2010

We think we know what failure looks like. Products don’t get purchased. Reorganizations make things worse. Shipments aren’t delivered. Speeches don’t get applauded. Things explode. These are the emergencies and disasters that we have nightmares about.

“Every day, there’s a line (sometimes 10 minutes long) to use the ladies’ room at Grand Central in New York. This is a failure.”

We think that failure is the opposite of success, and we optimize our organizations to avoid it. We install layers and layers of management to eliminate risk and prevent catastrophes. Read more