New Delhi, May 3 -- Let's begin with the term 'pre-mortem'. Unlike a post-mortem that analyses the reasons behind a particular outcome, a pre-mortem is a structured exercise done before you launch a major initiative. Everyone imagines the strategy has failed badly two years in the future and works backward to list the reasons. The team then turns those hypothetical failure causes into risk-mitigation actions or design changes while there's still time.

mortems so hard?

Because it's not just logic at play-it's ego, politics, and fear. Leaders hesitate to run pre-mortems because they're already emotionally invested in the strategy. Confirmation bias creeps in-we look for reasons it'll work, not why it might fail. And then there's the fear ...