The title is from a 2011 post from Ed's blog Beyond VC. At first (and maybe second) glance this is a paradox. At the heart of this paradox is one of the deeper secrets for learning from mistakes. Let's deconstruct it:
"Never give up..." This is a mantra repeated over and over again on this site, including Garr Reynolds's "Fall down 7 times, get up 8" and Angela Duckworth's discussions of grit. Persistence is essential to power past stumbles, failures, criticism, ridicule - all conditions that come before worthwhile successes.
...but move on quickly" - this refers to the ability to maturely sniff out a situation that is heading for failure, and not devote endless work cycles to trying to pull a success from the jaws of failure. Overall success requires diagnosing, with evidence, counsel and your own intuition, the smaller failures that come up along the way, and shifting your approach quickly after the diagnosis comes in.
"Never give up but move on quickly" is one of the Scylla-Charybdis balancing acts (per Albert Wenger) necessary to be a good entrepreneur or really senior leader of any kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment