I have written a few essays on the words and phrases that carry different meanings to clinicians and patients, and I probably have a few more to write. Today, though, I will write about one phrase that I have heard quite a few times in various industries that drives me crazy because it delivers messages to audiences that are not always intended. This is when someone will outline a strategy and then follow it with the ominous phrase, “…and failure is NOT an option.” Some may push back with me, saying that it is not meant to be taken as literal, but I will push back at them pushing back by pointing out that carries an implicit threat of world-ending. Further, if you accept that it is not literal, then it really has no meaning at all.
I know some will think that I am making a mountain out of nothing. Heck, you could go to some of my past essays, where I make a broad pronouncement and then embroider my statement with a footnote that says, “yeah, well, this may be mostly true, there are exceptions.” I don’t dislike this phrase simply because it is overused and is vacuous. If that was it, the phrase would join a bunch of other hackneyed phrases that I roll my eyes when I hear. I primarily dislike it for the underlying message it sends to its audience, regardless of whether that underlying message is intended or unintended.
It is functionally meaningless
I worked at an organization where there was an employee who could not be fired.1 I am not sure if this person was leveraging this preferred status, or if, because other people knew that they could not be fired, and therefore they were never challenged to do any legitimate work. Regardless, this person was passed from department to department with every transfer adding to the sense that they are untouchable and the weight of having to manage this person. It was only a matter of time before this person ended up on my doorstep. In the meeting where my boss informed me of this gift, she said that “failure was not an option” when it came to getting productive work out of this person. I smiled and nodded2 but knew that phrase had no meaning. If I failed to squeeze productivity out of this person, they would simply be shifted somewhere else. Once this person batted through the order, they would simply cycle through a second time. They were on my team precisely because failure had been an option at every stop before me. I had every expectation that, were I to fail, they would be off-loaded somewhere else. For the record, that person lasted longer at that company than I did. In fact, I think they are still there.
It carries weight it cannot support
The implication is that the described task is mission-critical (which is a more modern phrase that is equally vacuous, but I digress.) That, if we are not successful at this task, we will fail as an organization. In reality, there are very few corporate decisions that have the entire organization hanging in the balance. Yes, there are incentives to be first-to-market with something. Yes, failing at some work might mean failing to capitalize upon some opportunity, or may even cost an organization some status or profitability. Depending on the context, it might bring unwanted attention or even sanctions or fines. But saying that the fate of an entire company hinges upon the success of one thing overdramatizes that decision. There is no doubt that Ford’s Edsel or Microsoft’s Zune were colossal failures, but last I checked Ford and Microsoft are still doing quite fine.
Worse, though, is that this message is often directed at middle-management or frontline staff, which moves the anxiety of failure from the boardroom and to those who are least-able to chart a course to success. A frontline staff member that is told that failure is not an option might legitimately think the organization is in a precarious position. It might even become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if a lot of employees leave for something with more perceived stability.
It implies a lack of desire
At this point, you may be rolling your eyes at my criticisms. “Joe, you are engaging in hyperbole! It is just a stupid phrase!” Yes, when most people use it, they don’t literally mean that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. But what they often mean is more troubling. When I hear it used, I imagine that what the leader really means is: “I have asked you to do things in the past and you ignored me. You figured that if you kept your head down, this too shall pass. But this time, I really mean it!” It is the corporate equivalent to “If you don’t settle down, I will turn this car right around!”3 or “I will give you until the count of three! ONE… two… two-and-a-half… two-and-three-quarters…” Too often, it indicates that a leader has lost the room. They have lost the attention of their team and that the weight of their words doesn’t inspire a desire to succeed. This phrase is added at the end to underscore ominous intent, but if you feel the need to threaten your staff, you have already lost the argument.
It establishes a dichotomy
When I talk to frontline staff, one of the first hurdles I need to overcome regarding patient experience is that it is not a pass/fail test. The evolution in focus exclusively on top-box scores (rather than averages) has improved commitment to service in my opinion4 but it has also changed how people look at it. Too often I hear people say, “If they don’t give me a 9 or 10, it doesn’t matter what they give me.” When we allow pursuit of a top-box response to be defined as the pursuit of perfection, people will balk at the efforts to push for continual progress because the goal is perceived as unattainable. Likewise, the phrase “failure is not an option” is heard by staff as “perfection is the only option.” When a 7 or 8 is defined as failure, we have lost the plot of this novel. Likewise, when we define improvement that is short of the overall goal as “failure” we lose the trust of our staff.
It assumes no Plan B
When you say, “failure is not an option,” you are telling me that we have no Plan B. If this one thing fails, we are all screwed. This does no one any good. You raise the anxiety level and actually make it more likely that we will fail, either because that anxiety will prevent someone from acting with the required confidence to execute the vision, or because they will be afraid to act at all.
It assumes an end
One trend I have seen in hospitals chasing goals, especially with patient experience, is that as the in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year approaches, messaging, reminders, renewed attention all increase for that “final push” to meet goal. Regardless of whether the organization succeeds or fails in reaching the goal, one pattern seems to follow. It is not uncommon to see the scores of first quarter of the new fiscal year decline. It is as if we passed the finish line and took our foot off of the gas. Both the terms “success” and “failure” assume some sort of endpoint. But real-life doesn’t contain those sorts of endpoints. Even people who flunk out of school or get fired from jobs still manage to graduate or get other jobs. Just as those who succeed in one instance are not guaranteed success forever.
Scores will not always go up. Goals will not always be met. If that is how you define success, you will spend a lot of time feeling depressed. If the short-term outcome is the only goal, short-term failure shuts down the conversation. But if continued effort is the goal, any setback can simply be motivation for future success. When I coach a team, I stress that the only success I expect is constant persistence. Persistence will not guarantee success, but success cannot occur without constant persistence.
If we want to succeed, we need to do two things. First, we have to acknowledge that failure is always an option. In fact, failure is always a possible option and even a probable option. It might even be a likely option. Second, we must focus on the behaviors that are likely to breed success and not on the behaviors that threaten failure. (I will say a lot more about this in another essay this week.) If you are in a meeting and someone says that “failure is not an option” and they don’t follow that statement with “Therefore, this is what we need to do differently…” then they are not addressing the lessons learned from past failures nor the core concerns at the potential for future failure.
Essentially, my problem with this phrase is that it adds undue weight to the work. Everywhere in healthcare there are important jobs that, if not done well, can lead to negative consequences. That’s why hospitals have Quality, Risk, Legal, and Compliance departments. But I am not sure that people provide their best work when they are stressed by the dramatic consequences of failure. I would rather people define failure as a milestone on their way to success rather than the end of the line. Now you can call me a cheerleader with such optimism, but my experience is that I cannot get people to be successful by making the journey seem so difficult with such a small margin for error. We shouldn’t pitch new initiatives like we are climbing Mount Everest. We get people to succeed by making the journey seem like crossing a room, by making it seem silly that we haven’t already been doing it. Success is not achieved by making it seem complicated and hard. It is achieved by making people realize that even short-term struggle or failure can build long-term success.
1Those keenly tied to my origin story probably know exactly who I am talking about. Having said that, I am not interested in throwing shade on people, especially when they don’t have the opportunity to defend themselves, so I will keep this as vague as possible.
2I have been very lucky that a vast majority of my bosses have tolerated, if not appreciated, my snarky “truth to power” ethos. But even I know that sometimes it is best to just smile and nod.
3This reminds me of a time when the family was driving from Omaha to Chicago to visit my grandparents. We were driving through Davenport, Iowa, when my father, in a fit of frustration got off the interstate and got on going the opposite direction, making good on his promise to go back home. We promised to behave and he continued the drive to Mount Prospect, Illinois. To be clear, my father is a wonderful man with the patience of Job, so this story should be read as a story about how horrible my sister and I were being. Probably mostly my sister.
4Another topic for another day.
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