Don't grieve a failure before you've confirmed it. A project can be mourned before it has been measured.
One bad month and a plausible explanation can change the way a team talks: the product "had been" promising, the market "had" moved. No cancellation is required for people to start pulling back — working more slowly, saving their best hours for something else. That retreat can deepen the problem before anyone has checked the explanation.
Grief doesn't present itself as a hypothesis. It arrives as a fact, and the first thing it does is stop you from doing the things that would have proven it wrong.
A practical way to interrupt that cycle:
- Write what's known and what's feared in two separate columns. Most eulogies are written entirely from the second one.
- Name who goes to check, and by when, before anyone is allowed to disengage. Someone gets the real number, from real customers, and until they're back the plan doesn't change.
- Hold effort constant until the verdict. A team that works at half speed while it waits for bad news manufactures the news.
A struggling startup may need to close. It may need a different plan. The decision needs evidence that distinguishes those cases: customer behavior, revenue, costs, and the time available to test the next move. Neither optimism nor an exhausted team's verdict can replace that check.
A failure you haven't confirmed isn't a fact you're accepting. It's a decision you're making early.
What's the project your team has already started mourning — and who has actually gone to check?