"Frustration" and "apology": two traps of the (English) language of failure (series: notes to myself)

Suppose you are involved in designing, developing and deploying an artefact. It could be anything. Let's say, for the sake of simplicity, that someone, call him John, is building a new shower in your house. You need the shower. The shower you want is the right shower for your family. It is also a shower that would work well for everybody in the family (one person needs facilitated access). And in case you change your mind, you can always replace it with a bath or even remove it. It is actually a temporary solution. In short, your project is necessary, proportionate, justified, and time-bound (because reversible when you decide to change your mind). Following these conditions, you have some instructions about where you would like it, the design, the style, the budget, when work could start, when it should end, etc. Call them requirements. Based on all this, you issue your recommendations to John. 

Work starts, but, unfortunately, it does not go well. Things go south, as they say. There are now two traps that the (English) language of failure sets up. They are called frustration and apology. You should not fall into either of them.

#1: the frustration trap

You start complaining with John, for example about the delays, the lack of transparency in what he is doing, the fact that he is not clear about costs, or about the effectiveness of what he is building. You are not even sure it is building a shower that will work for everybody in the family. You keep telling him that things are not working as they should. And while doing whatever he is doing, he is absolutely sympathetic. John is with you. John understands. John shares your views. Your priorities are his priorities. So he keeps acknowledging that he is frustrated as much as or even more than you are by the fact that the project is not working at all. Even better, you are both equally frustrated because the situation is frustrating. And as things keep not working, frustration becomes qualified: you and John, meeting after meeting, move from very frustrating to incredibly frustrating. You may even get to the level of unbearably frustrating.

And this is it. The end of the story.

John seems to think that, by sharing with you his various degrees of frustration nothing else needs or can be done to fix the problems. 

Admittedly, sometimes it is true that the Johns of the world are powerless, and can only be frustrated by a failing project. But often, this is not the case, like with your project about the shower. So, if powerless frustration is really your kind but not John's, you need to (a) make that clear and (b) talk to someone else. Either John stops being frustrated and does something about it to eliminate your frustration, or you need to find someone better than John. You are frustrated, John is actually frustrating. The difference is crucial. And if his best is not good enough, you need to find someone whose best is better.

Suggestion: do not accept powerless frustration as the ultimate answer for a failing project.

#2: the apology trap

In the end, the project failed. You knew it all along, that is why you were increasingly frustrated. It was going to fail, predictably and predictedly. But all the shared frustration in the world made no difference. The shower does not work, is too expensive, it's in the wrong place and the whole thing has been a huge waste of resources and opportunities. So John finally offers you an apology. This is the second trap. He may sincerely think that his apology is the end of the process. That is his problem. Sometimes it is true that nothing else can be done but to apologise. This is why the frustration should not be powerless. Life can be at the same time wrong, irreversible, and unfixable. But this is not the case with your shower. Or with many projects we design and can control. Here, an inconsequential apology is a trap. John must apologise and ... resign, reimburse you, give you a bonus for a free job next time, promise to fix everything at his own expenses, suggest that he pays for someone else to fix his mess... whatever it is, a solution or rectification must follow the apology, or you have just fallen into another semantic trap.

Suggestion: do not accept inconsequential apologies as the ultimate answer for a failed project.

Next time you assess a failing/failed project, mind the traps.