CEO CHAT : Dealing With Failure November 19th, 2019
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH FAILURE?
Hi, Shesh, you must have encountered failure in your career? How did you cope with it?
THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS
When I was about 35, I was passed over for promotion. I had worked hard for it, was promised it, and then my supervisor told me that she was promoting one of my colleagues to this position.
My world collapsed. There seemed to be no point in all my hard work and dedication. I wanted to resign. More than anything else, I wanted to crawl into bed and never get.
I dragged myself back home and reluctantly spoke to my wife. I cried.
She held me and comforted me. And she said the four magic words – this, too, shall pass.
She was right.
Things did not get better overnight. But in the days and weeks that followed, I learnt –
Failure is transient.
It is a dip, not a downfall.
Failure can be reversed.
And it is a great teacher.
In time, I accepted this failure, and added my learnings to my toolkit. I worked harder and smarter. Within eight months, I was promoted to an even more challenging position.
That night, my wife and I hit the best restaurant in town, and painted it red.
****
Could you share how you would respond to failure? Or success?
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Hi. I read this with interest. Two questions arose as I did so. First, did you find out why you had been bypassed? Second, when you say you worked smarter, what does that mean? What did you do differently?
Hi Chinni, sorry for this delayed response.
One : Yes, I found out why I had been bypassed – one of the senior managers thought I was ‘growing too fast”.
Two : By working smarter, I made sure that the person who thought this also realized that, regardless of the speed of my growth, I was the best person for the role. I focused my efforts on ensuring that she saw my work, was kept abreast of the innovative ideas that I was creating, and of the help and support I was giving the department in spite of being outside it.