I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure – which is: Try to please everybody.
Herbert Bayard Swope
MEANING OF THIS QUOTE
There is no predefined formula for success; everyone has to carve out their own path to where they wish to be in life. While this journey largely varies from person to person, many of us often commit one avoidable mistake along the way – people pleasing. While trying to keep everyone around us happy, we tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. In fact, doing so only makes the job harder because despite all the time and energy you invest in pleasing everyone, there will always be some dissatisfaction about your approach to things.
DOES THIS MEAN WE SHOULD STOP CARING ABOUT OTHERS’ FEELINGS?
Absolutely not. The people we work with matter as much as the objectives we work for. We would even go to the point of saying that a disgruntled team can hardly ever achieve long-term success. That being said, there is a world of difference between maintaining team morale and going out of your way to unduly please everyone.
Especially for people in positions of power, there will be times when they have to be the bearer of bad news. This might range from something as mild as asking your team to work overtime to something as hard as letting go of an employee. As difficult as these decisions might be, you need to muster up the courage to go ahead with them for the larger good.
CONCLUSION
It is impossible to both please everyone and be successful. Once in a while, you will have to upset some people en route to accomplishing your goals. This obviously doesn’t mean taking advantage of the people around you, much less offending them for the sake of it. However, a good manager is someone who doesn’t shy away from taking such inevitably difficult decisions when the situation warrants.
Herbert Bayard Swope Sr. was an American journalist. A three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting, Swope is known for his quotes on success in life. One of these inspirational quotes go as follows: “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure – which is: Try to please everybody.”