{"id":2545,"date":"2021-03-22T12:49:38","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/?p=2545"},"modified":"2021-03-22T12:52:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:52:32","slug":"never-be-afraid-of-failure-remix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/never-be-afraid-of-failure-remix\/","title":{"rendered":"Never be afraid of failure [REMIX]"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charlie

Charlie Jarzombek: Early Car<\/p><\/div>\n

On the anniversary of my father\u2019s passing, I decided to repost this story from 2014 to my Civmix blog. It is interesting to read in retrospect. In all facets of life and work, I believe that you learn more from failure than from success. At Albany Public Library, two wonderful initiatives emerged from the initial failure of a tablet lending program: hot spot lending and the expansion of our WiFi on library property and further into the community. These two programs have only grown in popularity during the pandemic. So my original thesis, learned from my father, is even more correct now than it was when I first wrote this blog.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in more information on my father\u2019s racing career, this is a quick little primer: 50 Greatest Modified Drivers<\/a> \u2013 Charlie Jarzombek 1942-1987 & Best of the Rest: Chargin\u2019 Charlie was always out in front<\/a>, Suffolk Times<\/p>\n

————————————————-<\/p>\n

In 2014 my father was posthumously inducted into the New York State Stock Car Hall of Fame in Saratoga. I typically don\u2019t attend such events. However, my aunt could not make the trip and did not want my uncle to go alone. Since it was in Saratoga, I drew the shortest straw. My uncle is not a fan of public speaking, but he is a big fan of making me sweat. So, as we walked into the Saratoga Automobile Museum he looked at me, gave me his patented smirk (he has 6 actual patents, this one is fictional), and said, \u201d You’re going to give his induction speech.\u201d
\nNow part of my job is to do public speaking, so I embraced the challenge. I had about 30 minutes to cram in everything I could learn about my father\u2019s career in racing. A subject I know little about. So I made the rounds, and within a few brief conversations, and a quicker google search, I decided on my thesis. I never saw my father win a race, at least not that I can recall. I can\u2019t even remember seeing him finish one. I saw a lot of blown engines and a few crashes. I hear stories about how great he was, and I have a giant plaque in my dining room from when he was champion of the Long Island Racing circuit.<\/p>\n

I can’t remember being at any race where my dad raised that checkered flag. What I do remember was a family of farmers who never shied away from failure. Who were obsessed with making a \u201cbetter\u201d car. Who were just as excited with a \u201cnew build\u201d as coming home with a trophy. When something went wrong they accepted it, and went forward with new changes. My family never believed in \u201cif it isn\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it.\u201d That was the theme of the induction speech I gave about my father. But it is also what he passed down to me — never be afraid of failure.<\/p>\n

My dad had his racecar. I have libraries. I was asked by a colleague a few months back to find someone from APL to present about our WiFi hotspot loaning program. I volunteered myself. My interest wasn\u2019t so much in sharing the success of our current program, but in examining the failure of the tablet loaning program that preceded it. I believe that you may learn more from failure than from success. Even before we launched it, I had a suspicion that the program, one where we lent out Android tablets with WiFi to the public, might hit some snags. But the program cost us very little to provide. The tablets cost us nothing; it was part of the service fee. This was not a new idea; other libraries did it. As word got out about the program, staff understandably expressed apprehension. This, I thought at the time, was a challenge to my leadership. I doubled down. I would not hear the negativity. I went from silently hedging my bets on its success to thinking, \u201cTHIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT!\u201d Then Jordan Carleo-Evangelist wrote an article in the TU. A very positive article. Positive press for the library! I made the mistake of reading the comments. They were not necessarily positive. I wrote it off as Albanyitis, a term everyone uses on the local music scene.<\/p>\n

A week later I stood at the circulation desk of one of our branches, listening to a clerk do his best sales pitch for the tablet program. The patron said, \u201cThis is great, but it isn\u2019t going to last,\u201d She then explained why, expressing the same thoughts as everyone else. I actually wondered, \u201cWas this set up?\u201d I suffer from a dour expression. Those who know me say I always look concerned. I also have a policy to never talk about work at home. But I needed to talk to someone, someone I thought would understand. So when my wife unexpectedly asked, \u201cWhat’s wrong,\u201d I jumped at the chance to explain the push back I was getting about the new program. Her reaction, laughter. \u201cYou realize that isn\u2019t going to work,\u201d and then she accurately predicted everything that would, and did, go wrong. For a second I wondered if they had gotten to her as well. Within the first month of loaning tablets to the public, everything went sideways. People burned through data like there was no tomorrow. The waiting list was too long. Tablets disappeared and were broken. I fielded emails and angry phone calls. I spent a Sunday on the phone with a patron who was mad about the sudden throttling of bandwidth . I failed. Notice I said \u201cI.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program didn\u2019t work. But it did reignite our interest in loaning out hotspots and gave birth to the Device Loaning Committee, which is always coming up with cool ideas. APL tried something new. The smart people who work here figured it out. We moved on, and we are the better for it. I had failed. Not because the program failed. I failed because I became afraid of failure. It became personal. Things had been going really well, and maybe I had gotten too comfortable. If there is a philosophy I follow, it is Stoicism. My reaction was not stoic in any way. Instead of the obstacle being the way, I sat right down on it and had a pitty party. The failure of the tablet loaning will not be my biggest disappointment as a library director.The impact on the library was minimal, but it had a major effect on me personally. The impact on my ego was HUGE. For a few months after we pulled the plug on the program, I became uncharacteristically fearful of trying new things. It wasn\u2019t until recently that I have felt myself.<\/p>\n

As I thought about the tablet program\u2019s failure, I came to a pretty interesting observation about myself. Libraries are not racecars. When the engine blows, there is no finishing the race. Libraries are nuanced and complicated. They can, and will limp along. I think when I look back this is going to be a seminal moment in my career, and in some ways my life. It was a big leadership lesson. It was also a milestone personally. I am more like my father than I thought, and I need to be a little bit more like him in the future. Accept failure when it comes and learn from it. The alternative is stasis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the anniversary of my father\u2019s passing, I decided to repost this story from 2014 to my Civmix blog. It is interesting to read in retrospect. In all facets of life and work, I believe that you learn more from failure than from success. At Albany Public Library, two wonderful initiatives emerged from the initial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2545"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}