A Book Review from

July 1996

Carole Hyatt & Linda Gottlieb
When Smart People Fail:
Rebuilding Yourself for Success

Penguin Books, 1993

WHEN CAROLE HYATT’S BUSINESS PART-ner died, Carole’s world fell apart. She experienced grief and anger because she had assumed that if one planned and acted rationally, things would turn out well. She felt she was a failure.

Linda Gottlieb was senior vice-president of a successful television and educational film company busy with several feature projects. Then she was fired. Ashamed, isolated, scared, Linda talked with her good friend, Carole Hyatt. They began exploring failure. First, they charted their own progress and then asked almost 200 middle and upper-middle class, well-educated people with viable job skills to share their experience. Their assumptions about failure were shaken.

Since neither large corporations, government entities, nor small businesses are immune from lay-offs, failure in the work place has become a fact of life.

Once many people in our society hid whatever failure they could. Now many people speak more freely of being laid off and other so-called failures. The authors believe losses include: (1) self-esteem, (2) money, (3) social status. Loss of a job means experiencing all three.

The U.S. is described as the best and worst country in which to fail. Americans’ failures are often very public and embarrassing. On the other hand, we have the liberty and the encouragement of others to try again for success.

Failure has a positive power in that we learn we can survive, go on, and have talents previously hidden. Failure provides new options; we are certain to make changes in our lives, indeed. Failure is a judgment about an event (p. 37). Nothing more. What matters is how we cope with failure, not the event itself.

Predictable stages sometimes sequential, other times overlapping and repeating—follow failure: shock, fear, anger and blame, shame, despair. The stages of failure are similar to a non-fatal disease. You have to go through them in your time frame and then you can go on with your life.

Failure has a ripple effect. Anyone close will share the experience. The authors see a gender difference among married or live-together couples. In general, a woman’s success is more disruptive to the relationship than failure, and a man’s failure is more disruptive than success.

An implied contract is often violated by career disruption or phenomenal success (particularly on the part of the woman). Contracts include: the one spouse will make money and the other spouse will provide emotional support, and the equal contract where each spouse makes money and provides support. Re-negotiating the contract openly saves the relationship.

To limit the ripple effect, recognize it’s a crazy time; analyze implied contracts in the open; make no major changes in personal life; find an objective sounding board outside family; communicate honestly and simply with the family. Silence is deadly; candor usually elicits support and cultivates a sane environment.

Enough trends in gender differences appeared to give the topic a chapter.

Some women whose career is disrupted consider quitting; men rarely do. Both sexes tend to get in touch with the opposite side of themselves. Women generally express their emotions more freely and get through the stages of failure more quickly. The men who had been adolescents during the women’s movement and the over-35’s who made a deliberate effort to become more expressive were exceptions to the male stoicism trend.

Success and failure are moral judgments to women and game calls to men (p. 92). Men in this study spoke of business as war or a game with no moral undertones. Women spoke of career loss as being used, treated unfairly.

Sex-based differences regarding success and failure are less pronounced in younger people than in older people (p. 96). People under 30 want work to give them personal fulfillment; women use power comfortably and men seek rewarding work. Couples become safety nets for each other and see failure as one outcome of taking risk.

Stark, irretrievable failure presents the opportunity to reinvent oneself. Four stages make for a successful reinvention:

• Analyze what went wrong

• Reinterpret your story

• Re-label yourself

• Expand your options.

The study uncovered nine most common reasons for failures: poor interpersonal skills; wrong fit; lack of commitment; bad luck; self-destructive behavior; too scattered to focus; sexism, ageism, and racism; over- or under-delegation. and, hanging on.

If we believe that failure is a judgment of events, reinterpreting and re-labeling the event become possible. Reinterpreting and re-labeling makes us feel better, is empowering and curbs useless worrying and negative self-talk. We need time to get over the shock and anger, but not too much time.

To find fresh options, set up guidelines. Include what you can do, what has not worked in the past and why. Now you have a framework. List your skills. Look at your hobby Look for a niche in business that is unfilled or under-served. Read the want-ads in the newspapers and also the stories about people. Think about whom to work with, not just what to do. Do some why not? thinking. Sometimes what appears to be a crazy idea is the start of a new career.

Make the transition: get rid of past mental clutter; deal with money issues; find or establish a support group; learn to ask for help; pamper yourself; credit yourself for every success you have achieved. The discussion of dealing with apparent failure ends with emphasis on the inner journey—the personal satisfactions. The authors encourage us to strive for a balance between who we are and what we do.

This book is for those who have lost a job or a business and those who know someone who has. The advice is sound career counseling and life management.