Failure Work

Failure Work

“Failure work” is work, as I define it, that’s being done because the original attempt was wrong, unsuccessful, or didn’t work. We all experience it, from the minor toils of recovering something we dropped to the major hassle of retracing our route because we took a wrong turn.

It’s wise, of course, to try to minimize failure work and to take it in stride and learn from it when we cause it.

However, it’s extremely self-undermining to do someone else’s failure work! “Give me that, I’ll do it myself!” we hear at work. Some people will actually do their kid’s homework if the child has made a mess of it.

Everyone, even children, can be responsible for correcting their own errors and misjudgments. But if you decide to correct things for them, you’re just enabling them to refuse to worry about the quality of their decisions and work.

Because you’ve become cleanup central.