NASA is famous, or infamous, for the saying “failure is not an option.” Few things could be further from the truth, failure is always an option. Frequently it is the easiest option, but did you know that sometimes failure is also the best option? NASA understands this better than most. This is not to pick on NASA, rocket surgeons are super cool and the ICBM wouldn’t exist without them.
Certainly there are times when failure is not the desired outcome. On a tragic scale think Space Shuttles Challenger or Columbia. Or more personally, when you’re stuck in traffic wearing a white linen suit after two cups of coffee and a bran muffin for breakfast where no “outcome” is considered success.
There are also well known situations where you might choose to lose: setting up a pool hustle or playing checkers with your 6 year old niece (although it’s still advised to throw the occasional beat down and keep that little punk from getting a big head). But those are not business lessons. While much of what is taught at the International College of Businessry and Managering is applicable outside the golden halls of the corporate world, this lesson is specific to the working world.
Our entire lives we’ve been taught that the path to promotion was hard work. We’ve been lied to. When presented in a classroom it’s easy to see the shocked expressions on the wide eyed students in attendance.
At ICBM we speak only truth, and the truth is in the world of business one of the quickest paths to promotion is failure. “How can that possibly be true?” you ask. “Why would anyone who fails be promoted?” you wonder aloud. “What about the Peter Principal which states people are promoted to, but not beyond, their level of incompetence?” Laurence J. Peters of the just mentioned Peter Principal was a wanker who self-promoted WAAAY beyond his level of incompetence by double booking speaking engagements. Mr. Peters became famous without ever learning to write his appointments down; he failed his way up the ladder and you can too. (see: Annals of the American Library Association, March 1972)
Let’s examine a case study from a recent NASA project outsourced to an aerospace contractor. New software is required to run the Onboard Purification Recycling Air Harvester, OPRAH. The selection process has narrowed the field down to two potential candidates to manage OPRAH.
Manager A is in charge of 6 employees and a annual budget just over a million dollars. For 5 years she has delivered projects on time and to specification. Her employees like her. She and her group are well respected with the company. Recently she successfully guided her team as they rewrote software running on the International Space Station.
Manager B was most recently in charge of a 10 million dollar rollout of the Future Actuarial Reconciliation Tracking System. Like most projects of this scale, after being tightly held back there were only a few sputters and spurts released. Eventually it was determined that the initial specifications weren’t detailed enough for the vendor. After a full year of work it became obvious that everything is just vapor. After spending almost a million of the original 10 million dollar budget the decision is made to pull the plug.
OPRAH is tough to manage. Without careful guidance OPRAH will spin wildly out of control and become bloated just like FARTS. But put on the right course OPRAH is expected to offer spectacular gifts, most critically life giving oxygen. He gets oxygen, she gets oxygen, you get oxygen. Everyone gets oxygen! If humans ever hope to reach Mars, we need oxygen so we OPRAH.
Who do you think is the best choice to run OPRAH? Manager A or Manager B. The manager that delivers project after project on time, year after year on a tight million dollar budget or the manager in charge of multiple failed 10 million dollar software rollouts?
If you said Manager A you haven’t been paying attention. This is about failing up.
Why not Manager A? Money. Manager B was in charge of a 10 million dollar project that was cancelled after spending only one million. That’s a budgetary savings of 9 million dollars. Manager B understands the pressure of large projects and large budgets in a way Manager A simply can’t.
Manager B then? Not so fast sparky, if you said B then you failed too, and not in the good way. Manager B couldn’t even squeeze out FARTS let alone get his hands around OPRAH.
The answer is secret candidate Manager C. Most recently in charge of the 100 million dollar Terrestrial Orbital Explorer Jet Actuation Motors. TOEJAM was a spectacular failure. After going nearly 50 million over budget and receiving an additional 200 million in funding the project was cancelled. Manager C has worked on several other high dollar projects, and successfully requested additional funding for each one. When hasn’t TOEJAM gone out of control? It’s to be expected.
Why then is the best person to control something so large and important as OPRAH, the manager responsible for an enormous failure like TOEJAM? The Angel Axiom.
The Angel Axiom is named for man who first discovered it, Angel (pronounced Ang-hill) Rodriquez. After observing several managers at a large financial services company climb the corporate ladder without ever successfully delivering a single project he became curious and began to investigate. It turns out multiple factors are at play.
First: When determining the monetary effectiveness of a manager the amount of money NOT spent from a budget is more important the amount that IS spent. If a manager could secure 1 billion dollars of funding but spend only a single dollar, that’s a savings of $999,999,999! That’s not just impressive fiscal management, it’s effective management period. It doesn’t matter if any actual product beyond a few meetings was delivered, the manager is still credited with control of a billion dollar project. Because OPRAH is reaching well into the multi-billion dollars isn’t that who you want in charge?
Second: In exactly the same way you don’t complain about explosive diarrhea from the Two-Scoops for 50 cents Chinese buffet you didn’t eat for lunch, projects that are never delivered receive less scrutiny that projects that are. Does anyone remember Apollo missions 18 through 25? NO! Why, because they were cancelled. FARTS was never released, that’s why you rarely hear them in public. If nobody notices TOEJAM, that’s a success.
By using the Angel Axiom you can fail your way to the top, one cancelled project at a time. You never know, with a little (bad) luck, maybe you can be the lucky manager that tries to wrap their arms around OPRAH. Good luck and fail on!