Small failures don't always add up to big ones

My husband and I spent a few hours at our respective jobs today. Before I bailed out of my pod for the afternoon, I called to let him I know I was heading for the hizzy--which in the dialect of our marriage translates to, "Do I need to stop for anything on the way home?" And in the course of that conversation, I enquired whether he'd accomplished a lot in a quiet office. "Not really," quoth he. "Yeah, me too," I replied, "I think I mostly just got mistakes out of the way." "Well, that's progress," he pointed out.

And he's right. Probably not only for our trade, either. Yes, yes--I know Thomas Edison said, "I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Which is great if you work for yourself; Unfortunately, bosses & clients don't always take such a sanguine view of failure on billable time.

All the same, it is a reality of industries that are expected to be innovative, and where a failure to fail in tactical ways ultimately means the strategic--make that epic--failure of obsolescence.