Accepting responsibility or rationalize away the mistakes
“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”
This is actually originally by Goethe. You can see very good illustrations of this verse in the words of Lehman Brothers CEO.
The real meanings behind these words are that if your decisions result in not achieving required outcome, then there are many explanations in your head about why things don’t turn out as originally intended and it is not your fault.
When ideas fail, recognize that the ideas are not good enough or not very complete. Recognize that some concepts and data are left off your radar when making decisions regarding investments at that point in time when you make those investments.
Do not use words to justify why you are in no wrong, as it is most probably the ideas/concepts/knowledge/data are not complete and/or does not really apply for those circumstances.
Explanations are faulty, there is always a way to explain why white is black and why black is white.
In business environments, there will always be Lehman Brothers CEO who can justify that they do no wrong and you will be surprised by their creativity. Words can cork up great excuses why one is not incompetent.
Do be on the lookout for signs of such CEOs, when looking over the financial statements of public listed companies and never to touch it until he left the job.
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