Escape Forward: A Smart Strategy?

Author: Louise Ward
Date Of Creation: 4 February 2021
Update Date: 9 May 2024
Anonim
Escape Forward: A Smart Strategy? - careers
Escape Forward: A Smart Strategy? - careers

Content

You screwed it up, but really. Regardless of whether you got into an argument with colleagues on a topic or a presentation went badly: At some point you have to explain yourself. Escape to the front means that the way back is blocked. A real escape, a fix is ​​no longer possible. You have been caught and now the question arises, is there really only denial, the shifting of guilt onto others? How do you react, do you take flight or take a step back? In what situation can it be a smart strategy and when should you realize you've got lost?

Escape to the front Meaning: Don't give in now

Escape to the front - that sounds like a contradiction and, strictly speaking, it is. Escape in itself means someone flees from something. This does not necessarily have to be an escape in which another person wants to harm someone - it can also mean an escape from a verbal argument.


In this respect, flight means that the fleeing person faces a certain situation does not want to ask. Escape is then the easier way, in which no responsibility is assumed for your own previous actions.

Escape to the front, on the other hand, is one Art of standing; but the fleeing one reaches for it, so to speak Preventive Strike. Through active action, he tries to cope with a difficult situation, to free himself from an emergency.

The procedure is based on the motto “attack is the best defense”.

Escape to the front: start a diversionary maneuver

It is noticeable that that Military vocabulary comes from:

  • Diversionary maneuvers
  • attack
  • Escape
  • Preventive Strike
  • strategy
  • defense

And similar to a military operation, smaller human conflicts are also about maneuvering: who gives in first? Who can how "Make up ground"So get yourself back in a tricky situation and put yourself in a more favorable position?


Escape to the front means through one surprising action To take the other person by surprise in order to regain control over a critical or embarrassing situation. It's like a red herring: your colleague, for example, hasn't done his part about work.

Instead of admitting, however, that he screwed up, he takes a flight to the front and points to fundamental errors in the project that have so far been overlooked. If he is successful with it, for example because there was catastrophic slamming elsewhere, he can save his head. His part may then play one subordinate role.

Escape Forward as a Strategy?

Before anyone could take a closer look at the colleague's mistakes, he is with this one Defense strategy so got away with it. But is Escape Forward really that clever? If you're new to somewhere, unfamiliar with the process, and then make mistakes, this may work.


Job beginners still enjoy a kind of "puppy protection" anyway and on closer inspection there were perhaps really circumstances that would have led to errors in any other person as well. So instead of taking everything on your own, you can take the opportunity to To show grievancesthat favored failure.

For one one-time affair the escape to the front can therefore succeed. Over time, however, you should become aware of how the company's workflows work, what information or materials you need to be able to do your job successfully.

Escape to the front or from yourself?

Is it really true that you don't make mistakes? Or isn't the escape to the front more like that Inability or lack of willto stand up for one's own mistakes? At least that should be asked by everyone who never gives in to criticism from others, never broods and instead immediately starts to find excuses.

This is a Form of self-deception. Everyone, really everyone, makes mistakes. Why not admit it for a change? This frees the supposedly “infallible” from pressure. The pressure that perfectionism exerts, but also the pressure that comes from fear because someone might discover that you are not perfect.

With all of this there is a possibility that you will get completely lost in something. If you looked at it soberly, you would have realized long ago that there was a problem with it. But pride sometimes holds you back from admitting things. Perhaps you have invested a lot of energy - but unfortunately you overlooked a mistake in your thinking.

It is not easy to admit mistakes. Those who have particularly big problems with this suffer from low self-confidence. Affected people find mistakes threatening their self-esteem, so it goes into forward defense. But that never leads to anything good, rather it provokes conflict with colleagues.

Accusations such as "If colleague XY had done this and that, then I would be too ..." are not very effective and bring the said colleagues against them. You should therefore ask yourself: will this strategy of flight forward get me any further? Or maybe I don't get it that way deeper into the misery?

Escape to the front: error detected

You can explain what circumstances led to it, as long as it does not amount to passing on or rejecting guilt. Instead, you could explain what you need to do to get your job done properly. You might also admit where you are Have some catching up to dowhat you find difficult.

The truth can be liberating. And what's more: it makes you look more personable. Nobody likes know-it-alls and the moment you admit mistakes, you show that you do too only human are - just like everyone else. You also give the team spirit a new chance.

If you are already on the run forwards, instead of lapsing into accusations or explanations, you can proceed completely differently: Have you recognized a mistake in yourself and can hardly iron everything out on your own? Then show that you have grasped the situation and thought about the solution.


Of course, there may be situations in individual cases in which you withhold unjustifiably have to. The wiser gives in, they say. If you are still convinced that you are actually in the right, but you cannot end up with your counterpart, this quote still remains as a heroic emergency exit. You are thus in the morally superior position.

Other readers will find these articles interesting:

  • Concorde effect: Giving up is not an option
  • Pride and vanity: Your ego is about to burst!
  • Arrogance: How arrogance hurts
  • Overconfidence: The phenomenon of the high flyer
  • Overconfidence effect: That is why we overestimate ourselves
  • Narcissism: A simple question exposes narcissists
  • Self-deception: That's why we're kidding ourselves
  • These 6 mistakes prevent success even with the best
  • sorry: How to apologize properly
  • Error in the job: Confession correctly
  • make mistakes: Better than expected
  • Misconduct in the workplace: And now?
  • Fail: The wrong relationship to failure