​In his book, Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock, mentions an article written by Chris Argyris, a professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School. Professor Argyris looked at the performance of Harvard Business School graduates ten years after graduation. For the most part, these people got stuck in middle management when they had all hoped to become CEOs and captains of industry. The reason was that when these people experienced failure, their ability to learn collapsed. In Professor Agryris’ own words, “Put simply, because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure….[T]hey become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most.” The key to avoiding this predicament is to realize that failure is an integral part of becoming successful, so expect it. Then, accept it when it occurs and ask the question, “What can I learn from this?”