Could Elizabeth Have Saved It Through A Mea Culpa?

A phenomenal trajectory that traversed both through dizzying heights of fame and fortune, and then plunging into the abyss of dismal ignominy, a roller coaster ride from being hailed as the next wonder kid drop-out from Stanford to being dumped as a fraudster! The all black looks and turtle neck that reminded others of Apple’s Steve Jobs didn’t help her much.

She a Con Artist?

With many patents under her belt irrespective of how she bagged it and the audacity to commercialise one out of it, she cannot be called a con artist. She had a dream, developed a design out of it and got a patent too. She truly believed in it and went ahead though a learned professor cautioned her that the idea was unworkable.

But isn’t that the case with each and every disruptive technology that has finally found its way?

In her own words; “This is what happens when you work to change things; first they think you’re crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world.”

She saw it all; glory, money, honour and fame. She was out to change the world, driven by intense personal experiences. She believed, she was the change. She wasn’t a con act; not a bit.

A Brilliant Idea Sabotaged?

With unbelievable layers and levels of secrecy in everything she did or said, with each bit of information generated, moved within or moving in and out being monitored like state secrets,, employees sworn to secrecy and subject to severe and overwhelming legal repercussions the organisation had turned into an opaque labyrinth. In such an environment of mutual suspicion sabotage was a distant possibility. Looking at how things unfurled, it was evident that the focus of all secrecy and security was about guarding even a whiff of inabilities and failures getting out. There were serious design defects! They did everything to hide it.

There was nothing going right enough to be sabotaged!

How Did It All Go Wrong?

She had invested so much time, efforts and money into an idea she thought could revolutionise diagnostics. But it just did not work as expected.

But Isn’t that normal for almost all inventions?

With luminaries on the board of governors, too much of media glare, glitz, exposure and publicity, and early declaration of success ostensibly to attract more investments into a closely held private venture, the burden of failure could have been unbearable and unacceptable. Success had to be bagged and bagged at all costs, even if it was through dubious means. She seemed to believe that success was around the bend and it will come. So rather than retracting and re-examining the idea she continued to reinforce failure.

Each successive failure made the need to succeed faster more intense. Despite her claims of ignorance about what was happening on the lab floor, she seemed to have been party to resorting to dubious means to buy time till they succeed. She pushed herself and her company into a retrograde cycle. The harder she struggled in the quick sand, the more she got sucked in to it. The air of infallibility so meticulously crafted turned counter productive.

What Could She Have Done?

Rather than reinforcing failure and adopting deceit to buy time she could have easily gone public about the problem her design had encountered. A mere mea culpa would have in all likelihood won her the required trust and time to pursue her dream. After all, every idea that became a design and eventually a product did encounter problems and required time to mature. Unfortunately the young lady, gave herself the mantle of perfection and allowed herself to be immersed in the mantle of genius the media gave he. She even used the very same media to launch a counter attack to cover up. Failed counter attacks can have disastrous consequences. It sealed her fate and hastened the fall.

Lessons

Belief in oneself is good but allowing oneself to believe in flattry is nothing short of foolishness. Deliberately turning blind to one’s own flaws is an open invite to failure. It is normal for projects to take unexpected directions or encounter obstacles. To approach design and development arena with an air of infallibility or invincibility is recipe for disaster. Errors and setbacks are inherent to all developmental efforts.

When obstacles are encountered, it is important to pause, evaluate and then progress. When things don’t go as planned it is important to be honest and open about it. It helps reset, recalibrate and relaunch.

It’s not for Elizabeth alone. It’s for all of us. It’s applicable to each venture we undertake in life. It holds true in relationships too. Sense of infallibility precedes every fall!

For Elizabeth the story isn’t over yet. The patent still belongs to her. If it can be dreamt about, it can also be created. After all, whoever first thought man could fly would have been ridiculed. That dream became reality. Elizabeth can still work on her design, prove the professor wrong and revolutionise diagnostics. After all, we all need that contraption.

It’s not in falling but not in attempting to rise up and run each time one falls, failure is complete.

Elizabeth, the essence is time. Ideas need gestation time. Elephantine ideas need elephantine gestation. Keep greed and greedy people as far away from you as possible.

In every atom resides the element and every atom the element. Certainly every drop of blood must tell us our physiological story. It’s for us to find ways to read it. You had the audacity to dream of doing it. Patiently persist, you will find a way. Edison will work.

Elizabeth Anne Holmes, I hope you do it. I hope to see you in the very same black redeeming your pride.