Lofty Goals, Bottom-feeder Behavior

With few exceptions all of us have encountered one of those people who can sell an anchor to a sinking ship.  The person who has an ability to “package” a message so well that if you aren’t paying attention (and sometimes even if you are) you don’t realize that nothing meaningful has been said and no real contribution has been made.,  When no results are generated, that person is coated in Teflon – deflecting all responsibility and accountability.

Lofty goals and the representation that significant progress and results have already been achieved usually accompany this ability to sell a pre-packaged message..  When anyone holds the light of reason and analysis up to illuminate the facts, what surfaces is how results would have been achieved if only they’d had

  • More money
  • More time
  • More able partners
  • Fewer demands
  • Better treatment
  • More visibility

In business, as in our personal lives, we want to believe everyone has the best intentions and deals honestly.  We want the people with whom we  deal to be capable, ethical, and “have the goods”.  The reality is that many people, either through intent, incompetence, or self-delusion, misrepresent what they can do, will do, or intend to do.  The result is that businesses (and individuals) lose out financially and emotionally.

When others fail to live up to their part of the bargain, there are usually few options:

  • Do nothing
  • Take legal action (lawsuit, collection, etc.)

There is a third option – do a post mortem and analyze what happened so that you don’t repeat your mistakes.

Of course, that presumes  you made any mistakes.  Sometimes you can do everything right – formal legal agreements, reference checks, and all the due diligence steps – and things still go wrong.

In that case there is a fourth option you must take:  GET OVER IT!  You can’t change the past.  Write it off, close the book, look to the future, and work hard on succeeding and recovering from any loss.  In the final analysis, success is the only option.

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