De Limones A Limonada

FROM LEMONS TO LEMONADE

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FROM LEMONS TO LEMONADE
SQUEEZE EVERY LAST DROP OF SUCCESS OUT OF YOUR MISTAKES
Dean A. Shepherd

Vice President, Publisher: Tim Moore Associate Publisher and Director of Marketing: Amy Neidlinger Wharton Editor: Steve Kobrin Acquisitions Editor: Jennifer Simon Editorial Assistant: Pamela Boland Development Editor: Russ HallOperations Manager: Gina Kanouse Digital Marketing Manager: Julie Phifer Publicity Manager: Laura Czaja Assistant Marketing Manager: Megan Colvin Cover Designer: Alan Clements Managing Editor: Kristy Hart Project Editor: Anne Goebel Copy Editor: Gayle Johnson Proofreader: Leslie Joseph Indexer: Lisa Stumpf Compositor: Bumpy Design Manufacturing Buyer: Dan Uhrig

© 2009 by Pearson Education,Inc. Publishing as Wharton School Publishing Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 Wharton School Publishing offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales. For more information, please contact U.S. Corporate and Government Sales, 1-800-382-3419, corpsales@pearsontechgroup.com. For sales outside the U.S., please contact International Sales atinternational@pearson.com. Company and product names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America First Printing March 2009 ISBN-10 0-13-136273-9 ISBN-13 978-0-13-136273-4 PearsonEducation LTD. Pearson Education Australia PTY, Limited. Pearson Education Singapore, Pte. Ltd. Pearson Education North Asia, Ltd. Pearson Education Canada, Ltd. Pearson Educación de Mexico, S.A. de C.V . Pearson Education—Japan Pearson Education Malaysia, Pte. Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shepherd, Dean A. From lemons to lemonade : squeeze every last drop of success outof your mistakes / Dean A. Shepherd. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-13-136273-9 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Success in business—Psychological aspects. 2. Business failures—Psychological aspects. 3. Failure (Psychology) I. Title. HF5386.S4277 2009 650.1—dc22 2008041534

THIS

BOOK IS DEDICATED TO

MY DAUGHTER,

MEG,

FOR THE REASONS STATED IN THE BOOK’S CONCLUSION.This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Chapter 1 Managing Emotions to Learn from Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Learning from Failure Is Difficult but Rewarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 2

Strategies to Learn More fromYour Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Why We Feel Bad over Project Failure . . . . . 15 Why Some Projects Are More Important Than Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Some Projects Make Us Feel More Competent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Some Projects Makes Us Feel More in Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Some Projects Make Us Feel Like We Belong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Strategize to Learn from Failure. . . . . . . . . . 25 An Emotion-Management Strategy of “Working Through the Loss” . . . . . . . . . 28 An Emotion-Management Strategy of Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The Optimal Strategy: Oscillation . . . . . . 38 Conclusion . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Chapter 3

When to “Pull the Plug” to Maximize Personal Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Are We Biased When We Delay Failure? . . . 56 Are We Procrastinators? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Anticipatory Processing to Personally Grow from the Failure Experience . . . . ....