Guest Post
by Art Petty

There’s a definite difference between focusing on not failing versus striving for success.

When we focus on not failing, fear rents most of the space in our mind, and we see monsters in need of slaying everywhere we turn. We lose track of the original vision that propelled our actions, and the sheer act of working becomes at best a passionless exercise and at worst, drudgery. (more…)

Background

Planning for every eventuality is one of the leadership factors taught at West Point. While it might sound contradictory, the best planning allows the greatest flexibility. No plan survives contact with the “enemy”— whatever form the “enemy” takes — be it time, budgets, competitors, or changing conditions. Planning for all contingencies establishes the competitive edge.

Communication and planning go hand in hand. A plan is only as good as the leader’s ability to communicate it to the team, and to receive information from the team as to whether or not things are going according to plan.

Also, learning from Failure is a key skill that must be understood and mastered by the cadets at West Point. (more…)

By John McGuinness

Making assumptions is bad, right? The standard answer is ‘yes,’ because most of us have had those moments when we made a decision based on a certain assumption, and then discovered the decision turned out to be wrong because our assumption was wrong. Not good. And to make matters worse, the person pointing out our mistaken assumption probably also felt the need to become a linguist and write out “assume” as a three syllable word on a nearby white board. (Unfortunately, we know the punch line to that one.) (more…)