Lessons from a Fictional Ftbl Club

A loss no one names just hides and grows, and it tends to seep into the next effort as fear. Hesitation. The team takes the safe path instead of the ambitious one. Meaningful topics of conversation become off-limits. The ability to learn from what happened goes away. Naming it converts the isolation everyone is feeling into something that teams were literally created to achieve - a challenge that can be overcome together.

Belief is a practice you keep, especially after it's torn. A value that has never been tested and broken is a guess... a wish. Nobody bets on it when it matters, because nobody knows what it costs. The taped sign carries information the new sign couldn’t: everyone in that room knows exactly what failure looked like, and chose to believe again anyway.

You can’t learn what’s safe in an organization by reading the handbook. You learn it by watching what happens to the last person who shared a hard truth, or admitted a mistake. That outcome outweighs the entire universe of inspirational posters about open communication and trust.

I’m beginning to think that we shouldn’t worry so much about whether people like us. In business and life it seems like it’s healthier to focus on whether they have enough evidence that they’re willing to rely on us (for things we’re capable of) when that reliance could cost them something.