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Failure is a familiar trauma in life, but its effects on people differ widely. Some reel, recover, and move on with their lives; others get bogged down by anxiety, depression, and fear of the future. Seligman, who is known as the father of positive psychology, has spent three decades researching failure, helplessness, and optimism. He created a program at the University of Pennsylvania to help young adults and children overcome anxiety and depression, and has worked with colleagues from around the world to develop a program for teaching resilience. That program is being tested by the U.S. Army, an organization of 1.1 million people where trauma is more common and more severe than in any corporate setting. Nevertheless, businesspeople can draw lessons from resilience training, particularly in times of failure and stagnation. The program is called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, and it has three components: the Global Assessment Tool, a test for psychological fitness (administered to more than 900,000 soldiers to date); self-improvement courses following the test; and "master resilience training" (MRT) for drill sergeants. MRT focuses on enhancing mental toughness, highlighting and honing strengths, and fostering strong relationships-core competencies for any successful manager.

Seven CEOs, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists tell stories of personal failures-and what they learned from them. Doug Rauch, a former president of Trader Joe's, admits to being a "control-aholic" and recounts how his micromanagement hindered the chain's East Coast expansion. Linda Rottenberg talks about her mantra, "Go big, or go home," and how she made the call to close her business in India. Anthony Tjan describes the ups and downs of his start-up when the irrationally exuberant dot-com boom went bust. Roger McNamee frankly discusses his failed bid to change the world. Wayne Pacelle, head of the Humane Society, talks about the importance of closing the deal. Peter Guber recounts a life-changing experience with Muhammad Ali. Whitney Johnson looks back on her first venture: investing in a friend's dream. Dave Strubler, a mountain climber and business professor reflects on making it almost to the top.

China's economic progress has been so dazzling that people often forget that China, Inc. has seen its share of failures too. Just look at the first cross-border acquisitions that Chinese companies made. Many of those high-profile deals-including TCL's acquisition of France's Thomson, SAIC's takeover of South Korea's Ssangyong Motor Company, and the D'Long Group's purchase of America's Murray, Inc.-ended badly. But for the Chinese, failure is not about falling down; it's about refusing to get up. They quietly changed course, altering the kinds of targets they pursued and their rationale for M&A. Chinese acquirers have learned to steer clear of deals that involve costly turnarounds or tricky integration. Instead of buying brands, sales networks, and goodwill, they now look for hard assets, like mineral deposits and oil reserves, or state-of-the-art technology and R&D. And where they once tried to buy market share abroad, today they focus on acquisitions that will help them strengthen their share in China. Most telling of all, they're more willing to walk away-perhaps one of the surest signs of M&A sophistication.

Handling failure and blame is key to managerial success. But roughly 70% of Americans have a personality type that tends to react inappropriately when things go wrong. Some people are extrapunitive, always pointing a finger at someone else. Others are impunitive, denying there's a problem or that they played any role. And still others are intrapunitive, heaping too much blame on themselves and seeing disasters where none exist. Fortunately, there are ways to fix such flawed responses. The first step is to cultivate self-awareness; several personality tests can help you assess your interaction style. Next, deepen your political awareness to better understand what messages others are receiving. Once you've identified your bad habits, you can move toward more-adaptive responses. Dattner and Hogan describe several strategies that can benefit any of the personality types. You should make sure to listen and communicate well, reflect on the situation and the people involved, think carefully before acting, and look for lessons when mistakes do happen. Using detailed examples, the authors illustrate how people with the various personality types are apt to react to specific failures and explain what they might do differently. They also offer insights to help you recognize when your bosses, peers, or subordinates fit into one of the problematic categories and suggest ways to influence their behavior. The taxonomy and tactics they present will help you approach failure with an open mind and react in a balanced, constructive way.

After many shorter stints abroad, and extensive experience in China, Linda Myers took a job in human resources with Korean firm SK Holdings - but was unprepared for the culture clash. In her two years in Seoul, Myers not only experienced social isolation at the office but also found that, like many change agents, her ideas went unimplemented. Yet as one of the first American female executives at a Korean firm, there was no one she could turn to for advice. The experience drove home several lessons: Learn as much as possible about the obstacles you'll face and acknowledge when they might be too much for you, understand your mandate and communicate in advance about the scope of your position with your employer, don't let day-to-day misunderstandings bother you, and take more time than you think you need to introduce even small changes. What she learned - the hard way - will be helpful to anyone considering an expat assignment or working for a foreign firm.

When a set of giant robotic arms developed for the International Space Station breaks down during a crisis, project manager Samantha Van Sant finds herself in the hot seat. Did her team compromise quality by pushing the contractors too hard on speed? How can she prevent future mishaps-should the arrangement with the contractors be renegotiated to include different incentives or more safeguards? Gary L. Moe, a director of McKinsey's Business Technology Office; Tom Quinly, president of aerospace contractor Curtiss-Wright Controls; and HBR readers weigh in on the speed-versus-quality quandary.

Comedian Ricky Gervais on office dysfunction, creative control, his controversial comedy and why the greatest failure in life is not enjoying what you do.

When a set of giant robotic arms developed for the International Space Station breaks down during a crisis, project manager Samantha Van Sant finds herself in the hot seat. Did her team compromise quality by pushing the contractors too hard on speed? How can she prevent future mishaps-should the arrangement with the contractors be renegotiated to include different incentives or more safeguards? Gary L. Moe, a director of McKinsey's Business Technology Office; Tom Quinly, president of aerospace contractor Curtiss-Wright Controls; and HBR readers weigh in on the speed-versus-quality quandary.

When a set of giant robotic arms developed for the International Space Station breaks down during a crisis, project manager Samantha Van Sant finds herself in the hot seat. Did her team compromise quality by pushing the contractors too hard on speed? How can she prevent future mishaps-should the arrangement with the contractors be renegotiated to include different incentives or more safeguards? Gary L. Moe, a director of McKinsey's Business Technology Office; Tom Quinly, president of aerospace contractor Curtiss-Wright Controls; and HBR readers weigh in on the speed-versus-quality quandary.

In early 2006, Helen Drinan, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Caritas Christi Health Care System (CCHCS), Boston, received two sexual harassment charges against the organization's CEO and President, Robert Haddad. While she knew she was legally charged with acting, she faced a complicated situation: one, the hospital system was owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Boston with Cardinal O'Malley as the Chairman of the Board for the system; and two, these charges came after the priest molestation cases which rocked the Catholic Church of Boston. In Case A, Drinan presented the well-documented results from an independent investigator into the sexual harassment charges against Haddad. Although Drinan's investigator presented clear evidence as to Haddad's guilt, the Cardinal decided to launch a second investigation, using the Church's lawyers. Drinan, interpreting this action as a delaying or avoidance tactic, decided that she must act. But, what should she say, to whom and how should she frame this critical conversation? In Case B, students read the letter Drinan sent to O'Malley, voicing her values. There is an extensive Epilogue that the instructor can report from or hand out to students that brings the case to a conclusion.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. After finding his guitar badly damaged by United Air Lines' baggage handling, and after enduring nine months of fruitless attempts to secure restitution from the company, an exhausted customer retaliated by posting a YouTube video about his misadventure. A year later, the video has become viral and generated more than 9 million hits. This musician's course of action is but one example of a bona fide movement, and not only is online public complaining becoming more prevalent, but this form of customer response could also be very costly for companies. So what can companies do to deal with online complainers? Based on their eight years of research, the authors summarize their understanding of this phenomenon and provide actionable recommendations. They organize their conclusions into a two-by-two matrix. First, the matrix's rows differentiate between (1) understanding complainers' motives and behaviors and (2) recommendations whereby offending companies may change those behaviors. Second, the matrix's columns distinguish between the before and after of the online complaints, as motives and behaviors change over time. The authors' recommendations highlight how companies can prevent, or at least reduce, online complaining, and how companies should respond after an online complaint happens anyway. In particular, they show that the best way to avoid the triggers of online complaining is to develop fair processes and a triage system for initial non-online complaints. Also, they show that companies should respond to online complaints as quickly as possible-in any case, no later than four weeks after the online complaint posting-and that the nature of the apology should depend on the type of customer involved.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. While technological innovations have revolutionized the workplace, it is ironic that relational boundaries -- obstacles to productive human interactions -- remain largely unchanged. The authors identified five types of such boundaries: Vertical boundaries are the floors and ceilings that separate groups according to rank and privilege. Horizontal boundaries are the walls that separate them according to areas of experience and expertise. Stakeholder boundaries are the doors and windows of the organization. They open it up to, or shut out, parties such as vendors and local communities. Demographic boundaries result when workers are defined, say, by gender, race, education or ideology. Geographic boundaries are represented by the physical office location as well as by the electronic connections used to bridge time zones and distances.

To research the factors that affect the success of teams working on knowledge-intensive projects, the authors studied a companywide recognition program for project teams at a large multinational food company. Based on that research, the authors introduce the concept of the project network as an important tool for accomplishing knowledge-intensive work. Typically, project networks consist of a core set of team members who bring in noncore contributors (such as other company employees, suppliers, consultants or customers) from their personal networks to provide knowledge, information or feedback regarding the team's task. The project network thus takes advantage of both the project team as a whole and the personal networks of the members. The authors contrast finalist and nonfinalist project teams from the team recognition program at the food company. The empirical data the authors report indicate that, on average, there was no significant difference between the finalist and nonfinalist teams with respect to several project characteristics: resources, project membership or changes in the project. However, in one area there was a significant difference: The finalist project teams had more noncore contributors. After controlling for project characteristics, size of core project team and other factors related to participation, the number of noncore contributors was a positive and significant predictor of success, the researchers report. A project network can be helpful whenever any of the following conditions is present: The project scope is beyond the control and sphere of influence of the core team; the task is complex, and it is unclear whether or not there is an optimal solution; or some of the knowledge necessary to create a high-value outcome resides elsewhere. Managers can use a project's kickoff meeting to set norms and expectations that members of the project team have the option to look outside the team for possible solutions to complex problems.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Almost all executives want more and faster information, and almost all companies are racing to provide it. What many of them are overlooking is that the real aim should not be faster information but faster decision making, and those aren't the same things. Executives tend to request more information than they can use, and oftentimes the cycle time of decision making, not the speed of information flow, is the real bottleneck. While it is critical to identify what information is needed, it is just as important to deliver it at the right time. The types of information needed most quickly are not static and can depend on several conditions, including whether the current state of the economy is growing or contracting. The right cycle time for particular types of information can vary widely by industry, but in general the highest requested frequency is for competitor news, sales and customer news. Based on responses to their surveys and interviews of senior executives and managers, the authors provide suggestions and guidelines to enable IT organizations to deliver information more quickly and flexibly. That requires changes to both human and technical capabilities, but those changes could make all the difference in having the correct information to avert a crisis.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Technology has enabled people to reconnect easily with networks of contacts that have gone dormant. And it turns out that reconnecting dormant relationships can be extremely useful. In one experiment, advice that executives received from ties that had been dormant for at least three years was as useful, and often even more useful, than the advice they received from current relationships. The big payoffs of dormant ties are that: (1) They are great sources of unexpectedly novel insights, (2) reconnecting is extremely efficient, as it requires a minimal investment of time and (3) reconnecting is not like starting a relationship from scratch. People still have feelings of trust and a shared perspective, which are critical for receiving valuable knowledge from someone. The authors identify and answer "frequently asked questions"about reconnecting dormant ties. One concerns the staying power of relationships once reconnections have occurred. Typically, they conclude, these reconnected relationships do not become fully renewed and maintained, but those who reach out cite the experience as overwhelmingly positive.

Many managers think that the way to capture value through relationship marketing is to focus on the "good" customers and get rid of the "bad"ones. But there is a lot more to best practice relationship management than maximizing revenues on individual customers and minimizing costs to serve. The authors studied people who were in emerging, existing and terminated relationships with companies and identified three important ways in which the current practice of CRM fails. First, companies forget that their relationships are not just with consumers, but with people who live rich and complicated lives. Second, because relationships come in different shapes and sizes, companies need to be cognizant of the requirements of diverse types of relationships beyond the loyalty ideal. Finally, companies don't recognize that relationships are two-sided and that these relationships evolve with each interaction. These three failings, illustrated with examples, led to the identification of three principles: Get to know customers as people; think beyond loyalty; and take responsibility for relationships that are two-way. The authors provide guidelines for companies that want to improve the overall value of their customer relationships. They suggest that companies first catalog and analyze the types of customer relationships they have, then develop a portfolio of relationships, optimizing those they have and identifying which new ones to focus on. Companies then need to determine which metrics to use to track the health and performance of those relationships, adjusting as they go. For most companies, the transition to a relationship-based approach will require a significant shift in mindset and practice. Managers will need to expand the type of data collected by their CRM systems, customize CRM solutions to the specific types of relationships the company is managing and retrain customer-facing employees to be sensitive to the relational clues they receive and send.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Despite the economic downturn and tenuous recovery, more than two-thirds of businesses are strengthening their commitment to sustainability, according to a new global study by MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group, as reported in this article. The study found that 69% of companies surveyed plan to step up their investment in and management of sustainability this year. Just over one-quarter (26%) plan no change, and only 2% intend to cut back on their commitment. The study also found that a two-speed landscape is emerging, with a gap between sustainability "embracers"-those who place sustainability high on their agenda -and nonembracers or "cautious adopters,"who have yet to focus on more than energy cost savings, material efficiency and risk mitigation. Embracers are significantly more confident about their competitive position than nonembracers are. Seventy percent of embracers said they believe their organizations outperform industry peers. By contrast, only 53% of cautious adopters described themselves as outperformers, and 14% admitted to lagging behind peers -more than twice the percentage of embracers who made the same claim (6%). In addition, nearly three times as many embracers (two-thirds of them) as cautious adopters said that their organization's sustainability actions and decisions have increased their profits. "What's fascinating is that these findings depict a business landscape in general that's tilting hard toward where the embracers already are,"says Michael Hopkins, editor-in-chief of MIT SMR and a coauthor of the report. "So the embracers have handed us a kind of crystal ball. Their insights and behaviors suggest a blueprint for how management practice and competitive strategy will evolve." The report identifies seven specific practices exhibited by embracer companies, which together begin to define sustainability-driven management.

People vary enormously in how they perceive and respond to failure, and those perceptions and responses are shaped by the cultures in which they grew up or now work. Western multinationals are sinking a huge amount of money into India, China, and Brazil, and emerging giants in those countries are setting up operations in world markets as well. Any business with global aspirations must take seriously cultural differences in general and around failure in particular. Drawing on the findings of a global survey that has been ongoing for 30 years, Trompenaars and Woolliams have identified the dimensions along which people from various cultures differ regarding failure. They discuss the five most important of those dimensions: (1) Do we view our environment as internally or externally controlled? (2) Which is more important-rules or relationships? (3) Are failures the responsibility of the individual or of the team? (4) How much do we identify with our failures? (5) Do we grant status according to performance or to position? The authors describe how some forward-looking companies are managing to reconcile cultural differences to create a powerful platform for innovation.

This case describes Latvia's transition from a Soviet republic into an EU member, its economic boom and subsequent bust in 2008, and its policy response. After implementing significant economic and political reforms in order to qualify for EU membership in 2004, Latvia had turned its sights toward joining the single-currency eurozone, pegging its currency to the euro in 2005 as a step toward that goal. From 2000 to 2007, Latvia achieved faster GDP growth than any EU state. However, when large inflows of capital suddenly dried up in 2008, Latvia had to obtain a financial rescue package from the IMF, World Bank, EU, and several regional countries in order to avoid a full-blown financial and currency crisis. Latvia then adopted an aggressive economic adjustment program centered on maintaining its currency peg, which meant competitiveness would have to be restored by reducing domestic prices, wages, and public expenditures in order to drive down the real exchange rate. Latvia's policy program and initial results are discussed in the case.

What leads to market failures in finance of clean energy startups? How do different governments approach this issue?