How to lose a Referendum by Jason Farrell and Paul Goldsmith is a darn book about the multiple reasons that led to one of this decade’s highly publicized and stomach churning debacle in the western world.

It states that the reasons for the victorious (by a small margin) VOTE LEAVE campaign in Britain were not just due to the notorious propaganda created by a few individuals (remember Dominic Cummings), but go way back to the era immediately following the second world war.

United Kingdom had aided the allied forces to thaw — off Germany and the Soviet forces and would soon be paying the Price of Victory. When France and the newly minted West — Germany agreed to join forces with a vision to create a common European Union (with a more far fetching speculation of The United States of Europe, as Winston Churchill termed it) with four other countries, it invited Britain into their midst to co-create this establishment. The European Commission, as we know it now, wanted Britain to join this committee and help shape the future of the European Union; however the UK was a tad bit overconfident in its successes. Most importantly, it hadn’t fallen over the last two world wars (hit in the face with the German missiles and bombs for sure, but it had Kept Calm and Carried On!). In fact, it had helped the allied forces to bolster up their strengths in the face of Fascism.

The political and economic union of the European nations was a smart way to curb any intra-state wars and also create a united front to any power that may decide to counter it in the future. Albeit the member-states had to give up some of their sovereignty to the higher European authority, they stood to gain much more in return. The decision of the United Kingdom to ignore this invitation in the first place led to one of the major lapse of judgement that it could commit immediately after the second world war. By not committing from the inception of the European Union, Britain could not play an active part in the formulation of the policies and procedures according to how it was aligned. Hence when they did decide to join the union in the 70s, the commission had evolved to a point of no return for the UK.

And cut to the Brexit referendum in 2016, the trailing consequences of which unfold even today. Super — confidence in your victories in great, but do we need to fall in order to see the bigger picture?

Product Management and Overconfidence

As product managers, we tend to measure our successes by the quality and the successes of the products we churn out — each release, launch and feature is celebrated when we hit the mark or learned from when we hit smack on the ground.

Product triumphs can be resounding and help boost our egos a bit, but product failures motivate us to tweak and learn, adapt and be resourceful in the face of adversity. These failures can shape our product management strategies, allow us to stay humble and ultimately shape us into better product people with each shipment we actualize.

Do successes really make us myopic? Do they hinder our vision to strategize about our long term product plan? And are failures essential to be a better product manager?