FROM THE EDITOR

That's a strange New Year's resolution, and I blame the IAPD/IPRA Annual Conference for it. Specifically, I blame the title of Bill Guertin's session #422 "What Would You Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?" (page C 24), which made me think about how I've typically reacted when I knew the odds for failure were reasonably certain. There was that time when one of my bosses called and said he wanted a book produced in eight weeks. I knew the authors had not yet written a single word of manuscript, and I don't believe in letting anybody — especially a supervisor — operate under unrealistic expectations. So I immediately launched into a perfectly logical explanation of why the project couldn't physically be done in that timeframe.

Big mistake. That boss didn't hear my intended message: that I wouldn't promise something unless I was sure I could deliver. (In fact, I didn't get past step one in my explanation of the book production schedule before he lost patience with me.) The messages my boss heard were: that I was too scared to do the job; that I wasn't committed to the project; that I lacked the vision or the talent to do anything different than what I'd always (successfully) done. Better to have said "Sure thing, boss," and failed.

Better still to have tested the waters for failure, because later I found out that that eight week deadline might have become an ASAP deadline, if only I'd have said something like: "That's a great project and an ambitious schedule. Let's get together and see how we could make that work."

Imagine what I might have learned had I opened myself up for failure. The lessons could have ranged from: "The boss isn't as unreasonable as he seems" to "The priorities have changed" to "OK, so I can't do a book in eight weeks without a manuscript, but I can do a heck of a lot more than I thought."

Weird how that incident still haunts me, probably because it took me so long to realize that saying no to the possibility of failure means saying yes to the status quo, yes to stagnation.

I've always believed that people learn more in agony than in triumph. The kid who scorched his hand on the hot stove yesterday is much less likely to get burned today than is the child who has never been blistered. Learning a good lesson once and for all is often the not-so-bad downside of failure.

Of course, the up side of facing failure is the potential for great achievements. Julius Caesar crossed the river into Italy and became emperor for life. (OK, after the civil war it was a short life, but he was emperor.)

For you and me, the stakes aren't as great as the rise and fall of Rome. So why don't you join me in this New Year's resolution? Instead of shying away from failure, let's wrestle with a long shot and see what we can achieve. And even if we achieve nothing, then let's see what we can learn.

RODD WHELPLEY
Editor

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