Arguing with failure is pretty tough. By definition, there’s nothing left to argue with. It’s dead. You can argue about failure, who’s to blame, or what caused this or that to happen, but there’s usually not a whole lot to argue about. Generally it’s pretty clear why something failed.
Success on the other hand, is definitely something you can argue with. Is it actually successful? Is it causing more problems over there than it’s solving over here? Is it accomplishing what it’s supposed to? Is it doing that properly? Fairly? Should it be accomplishing something else instead? Of course, you can also argue about success as well: why is it successful? Was it luck? Timing? Is it feature X or feature Y that people are really enamored with? Is it just the marketing?
It’s really hard to argue with success. That’s why so few people do it. If it’s even possible, it’s going to take a lot of work to unravel why something works well. It’s even harder to tell if something new is going to work even better. But, when you do argue with success, the rewards can be phenomenal.
John Rockefeller argued with success. Before he came around, whale oil was so successful we were starting to run out of whales.
Michael Dell argued with success. Before he came around, computers were sold in stores, and those stores were making a killing.
Steve Jobs argued with success. Before he came around, computing was done on mainframes, and companies like IBM were immensely profitable. Before he came around again, animation was done by hand, and Disney created an empire. Before he came around again, computing was done on desktops and laptops, and the likes of HP, Dell and Compaq were behemoths.
So, argue with success. Maybe it’ll change everything.
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