“Some people have a highly developed fear of failure, and when these people become executives… this need not to fail drives the organization and patterns its strategic planning. …[T]his means not seeting objectives (they may be the wrong ones), not taking risks (risk is a dirty word to people with a high fear of failure), and, when a choice is imperative, choosing strategic alternatives that minimize the risk of not meeting them. That means “safe” alternatives. (But executives with high fear of failure often forget that there is no free lunch here either.)”
— Dick Levin, in The Executive’s Illustrated Primer on Long-Range Planning (1981).
