Fail to Succeed

It's day 83 of the catastrophic oil in the Gulf of Mexico. After a long, sorry list of attempted fixes and failed containment solutions, the British Petroleum Oil Company this weekend decided to move toward a more effective way to cap the billowing flow of oil from the ocean floor.

Unfortunately, this effort required BP to remove the ill-fitted cap that it secured to the well last month. According to the Associated Press, as much as five million gallons of oil could gush out between the removal of the old cap and the installation of a new cap, which engineers hope will funnel the escaping oil to tankers at the surface.

Attention to this tragedy has waxed and waned since the explosion which started with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. And I fear that in the constant viewing of the underwater camera fixed on the spill, many people have forgotten about the 11 oil rig workers who lost their lives, and the families they left behind.

At the same time, I am fascinated at the metaphor presented by the choices made by BP. In order to get a positive result, these engineers are not risking the flow of more oil into the Gulf. They are guaranteeing that result. In other words, they have to accept failure, (hopefully temporary), in order to get to a better result.

What about you? Would you be willing to knowingly fail in order to move closer to ultimate success?