Failure to recognise failure

You probably don't like the word failure. I certainly don't. It makes me cringe and shiver. Possibly because I have had my fair share of them and the flashbacks are painful. However, I was driving to the office this morning and half listening to our Minister for Finance explain his plan to rescue 'us' without worrying about politics and the next general election. 'Failure was not an option' seems to paraphrase the hapless interviewer'. Unfortunately for him this listener was having none of it. All I could think of was the sequence of failures. Failure to sort out corruption in his own ranks, failure to provide a vaccine for young Irish women, failure to regulate the banks, failure to control public spending, deal firmly but fairly with Irish unions, failure work on behalf of small business and lastly failure to know when your time is up! 

 Tom Peters the author of the Peter Principle said to us that, eventually, every job tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties. Real work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. Generally people make a good-faith effort to perform their jobs well, but in reality this is not enough. Whether you are in business, government, education, or anything else we can all take comfort from the highest ranking exponents of the Peter Principle!