Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences:
We are remarkably quick to turn repeated outcomes into identities: I can’t sell, I can’t lead, I’m not cut out for this. But before deciding what the result says about you, it may be worth diagnosing the conditions that produced it.
Sometimes we turn repeated results into conclusions about ourselves far too quickly.
Justin Welsh recently shared a story about being fired from his first three sales jobs. Three jobs. Three failures. Enough evidence, he thought, to reach what seemed like a perfectly reasonable conclusion: he was bad at sales.
Then he joined ZocDoc.
Different company. Different boss. Different colleagues. Different city. Different product. Perhaps most importantly, a product he actually believed in.
On his first day in the field, he made a sale. Within months, he was outselling everyone else on the team.
The person hadn’t suddenly changed overnight. The conditions had.
When something repeatedly doesn’t work, our instinct is often to locate the problem in ourselves. We decide we’re not good at sales. We’re not disciplined. We’re not leadership material. We’re not entrepreneurial. We’re simply not good at this.
But a recurring result does not automatically tell you what is causing the result. It only tells you that something in the current configuration isn’t working, and that configuration includes far more than your ability. It includes the environment you’re operating in, the people around you, the expectations placed on you, your level of experience, the systems supporting you, the product you’re representing, the market you’re trying to reach, the way you’re being managed, the method you’re using and even whether you believe in what you’re trying to do.
Change one of those variables and the result may change. Change several and you may discover that what you had interpreted as a personal limitation was actually a poor fit between you and the conditions in which you were trying to perform.
Accurate diagnosis matters.
We are remarkably quick to turn outcomes into identities. A failed attempt becomes I can’t do this. A struggling business becomes I’m not cut out for entrepreneurship. Difficulty selling becomes I’m not a salesperson. A leadership challenge becomes I’m not a good leader.
There is an important difference between “this isn’t working” and “I am incapable of making this work.”
The first is an observation. The second is a conclusion. And there may be an entire diagnostic process missing between the two.
A similar thing occurs inside organizations.
A company launches an initiative and engagement is poor, so employees are labelled resistant. Sales decline, so the sales team is blamed. A strategy stalls, so leadership concludes that execution is the problem. A programme fails to produce results, so another programme replaces it.
The visible result may be telling you very little about the actual constraint.
- Perhaps the capability is there, but the conditions are wrong.
- Perhaps the person is right, but the role is wrong.
- Perhaps the strategy is sound, but the structure works against it.
- Perhaps the team isn’t resistant at all.
- Perhaps what they’re being asked to implement doesn’t make sense from where they sit.
And perhaps you aren’t incapable of selling.
Maybe you’re trying to sell something you don’t believe in, to people you don’t understand, using a method that doesn’t suit you, in an environment that brings out very little of what you’re actually good at.
That doesn’t mean every disappointing result can be blamed on circumstances. Sometimes the diagnosis really is a capability gap. Sometimes we need more skill, more practice, more discipline or a different approach; but that conclusion should come after diagnosis, not before it.
Before turning a disappointing result into a statement about who you are, examine the conditions producing it.
Strategic Reflection Prompt
Think about something you have repeatedly struggled to make work. What have you concluded that struggle says about you, and what might you discover if, instead of judging yourself, you diagnosed the conditions?
About Giselle
Most costly decisions begin with a wrong read of the situation.
I’m Giselle Hudson — The Pre-Fixer. I help leaders see the real problem before they act, in my writing and in my work. I don’t fix; I pre-fix. Most advisers jump to solutions before they’ve found the real problem. I find it first — the part that isn’t fully visible yet. Once we see that clearly, everything else falls into place, and confident, right action can follow.
Through my daily Strategic Alignment Journal, I explore leadership, decision-making, and the patterns that shape organizations — helping leaders make sense of complexity before they commit significant time and money to the wrong thing.
What’s the one thing about your business that frustrates you most — the thing that, despite your best efforts, you can’t seem to resolve?
