Success in management is encouraging failure

When Shizuka Arakawa won the figure skating gold medal in the 2006 Olympic Games, her error free performance marked an achievement beyond the purely personal. The second oldest women to win a figure skating gold medal, she was also the first Asian women to do so. And she quite literally put something behind her on the way to this victory: her bottom, which she had landed on some 20,000 times on her long journey from beginner to Olympic champion.

Though doing so may have lacked dignity, there is a valuable lesson in her example, as Geoff Colvin pointed out in less than gentlemanly fashion in his book, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else -