Know Why It Failed
“Oh that, idea? We’ve done that before 5 years ago! Let me save you some time.”
Being a leader is tough. Not only do you have to pick a good idea, but you have to get the execution right. It struck me the other day that many times when people move onto a new idea, org structure, whatever, they don’t have a clear picture of why the old one was not appropriate other than:
It was done by my predecessor.
There are a whole set of reasons why something fails, and only by getting the most important ones right can you succeed.
Wrong idea
Wrong rollout to org
Wrong message
Wrong funding
Wrong market
Wrong follow-on effort
Wrong time
Wrong leader
Wrong team
Wrong company
Wrong alignment between groups
Wrong contributor
Wrong process
Wrong metrics
Wrong price
Wrong goals
Wrong tweaks in response to feedback
There are many more than this. Which ones are most important to you? To success of your effort?
Often, the job of a leader is to take a failed idea – one that no one thinks will work – and with the right root cause analysis, tweak one or all of these and have it succeed.
Ever wonder what Jeff Bezos means when he says “Stubborn on vision, flexible on details?”