You did what you could

You yelled and threw furniture, but couldn't convince anyone. Or, you cajoled people until you ran out of breath, but no one was swayed.

Who's fault is it, then, when that thing you said would happen -- the database crashed, the big feature didn't work, version 2.0 came a year late, whatever -- actually happened? Not your fault, right? How could it be? You did what you could.

Still, the blame rests partly with you. Not entirely you, of course, but still partly you. You were part of the team.

More to the point, clearly you weren't effective. Your own ineffectiveness comes back to only you. Unless you believe (and surely you don't) that not a single person in the company or on the planet could have made a difference -- gotten the right people to listen, convinced a few people to act differently -- had they known what you knew, then it comes back to you.

A bit harsh, perhaps. But not unreasonably. We see it everyday. Here's a recent example involving former President Bill Clinton.

Wirth noted the recent momentum on climate change, then turned to his former president.

“Why did this take so long?” Wirth asked Clinton pointedly. Clinton looked a little peeved. “We didn’t have the votes before,” he explained.

Later in the program, Podesta returned to the subject. “I want to come back to the question you posed to President Clinton, which is what’s different than the last 35 years,” said Podesta, who most recently served as Obama’s transition chief. “And I’d say after this beginning, it’s that we have new leadership to move the issue forward.”

...some Democrats blame Clinton for being too tactical and hope that Obama will achieve what his predecessor failed to do in remaking health care and reining in climate change. “So why didn’t more happen?” Wirth asked, repeating his own question when I tracked him down after the forum on climate change. “That’s the first question that has to be looked at. It was not very high on their political list, and I think they were somewhat afraid of the issue politically.” Clinton was right that he did not have the votes, Wirth said. “But they didn’t try to get the votes,” he said. “When we were doing Kyoto, they weren’t really helpful in driving the issue at all, the White House. We were sort of hung out there on our own at the State Department. So we lost all those years.”

Failure to convince is still failure. You'll feel more comfortable and look better owning up to it.