Leadership teams often define failure too narrowly. It undermines their ability to adapt.
In a recent interview with Sam Paar, mentalist Oz Pearlman challenged the idea of “bombing” a performance. As he explained, failure depends entirely on how it is defined. As his skill has improved, he has adjusted that definition. He moves the goalposts and, in doing so, changes the rules.
From the audience’s perspective, there is no clear signal that something has gone wrong. They don’t know what was supposed to happen next. Behind the scenes, there are different paths that all lead to the same outcome. If one approach doesn’t work, he simply takes another.
In his words, “you’re defining something that I define very differently.”
Failure Isn’t Binary, But Teams Treat It That Way
As a team performance coach, I often act as a mirror. I help leadership teams examine where they were, where they are, and where they are trying to go. One of the most consistent patterns I see is how quickly teams label outcomes as success or failure.
Oz made a related point. Failure is not binary. You only know something is right because you understand what would have been wrong.
In a business context, this distinction matters more than most teams realize.
Strategic plans are not predictions. They are best guesses. When things don’t unfold as expected, it doesn’t necessarily reflect poor execution. It often reflects incomplete information.
Where This Breaks Down: The Quarterly Session
In a typical EOS quarterly planning session, my client teams review their progress against a set of Rocks, or 90-day priorities. It’s not uncommon to hear that only a fraction of those priorities was completed exactly as written. Sometimes it’s as little as 20%.
The immediate reaction is predictable. Frustration, followed by a conclusion that the quarter was a failure.
But those priorities are not the outcome. They are inputs intended to move the organization toward a larger objective.
When viewed in isolation, incomplete priorities appear as failure.
When viewed in context, they often represent course correction.
Focus on the Outcome, Not the Path
The more useful question is not whether the team executed the plan exactly as written. It is whether they are closer to what they ultimately want to achieve.
This is where Oz’s concept becomes instructive.
Like a mentalist guiding an audience through an experience, high-performing teams operate toward a desired outcome while adapting to real-world conditions as they go. They adjust in real time, based on what they learn.
From the outside, those adjustments can look like deviations or even mistakes. In practice, they are part of the process. The destination remains the same. The path evolves.
Where Leadership and Facilitation Matter
This is where leadership, and good EOS facilitation, becomes critical.
My role is not to judge whether a team followed its plan perfectly. It is to help them interpret what actually happened. Often, that means reframing what they initially describe as failure.
For my client teams that have been working this way long enough, what looks like a miss is often one of three things:
- An assumption that proved incorrect
- A shift in external conditions
- A realization that a different priority matters more
None of these are failures. They are information.
And when teams learn to see them that way, they stop getting stuck.
Moving Forward
A high-performing team continues to adjust, pivot, and move forward. Each iteration helps them better understand which paths lead to the desired outcome.
Leadership teams don’t get to stop after a successful or “failed” quarter. The work is ongoing. Each cycle builds on the last.
The goal is not perfect execution of a plan.
It is the ability to keep moving toward what you want, regardless of how the path changes.