Almost Beautiful: The Margin of Mistakes
I have long been a racquetball player. The sport has become less popular lately, so you can find a quick two-minute explainer video here (How to play racquetball) if needed. But understanding the rules of racquetball and playing the game well are two very different things.
To play respectably well, in my opinion, requires a player to do two things:
Anticipate or follow the ball to where it is going and position yourself properly, and then
Execute your shot well.
If you are out of position, it will be difficult or impossible to hit the ball legally and effectively. You are likely to lose the volley.
But simply making a legal shot is rarely enough to win against an evenly matched opponent. A weak or barely executed shot simply gives your opponent an opportunity to make a better shot in return.
Your goal on every volley is not merely to return the ball. Your goal is to execute a shot that is difficult—or impossible—for your opponent to return.
For example, it is possible to hit the ball so that it strikes the front wall and the floor at exactly the same moment, after which the ball simply rolls back along the floor. This is called a kill shot because it cannot be returned. It is a guaranteed winner.
That happens rarely.
But there are many other difficult shots too: ceiling shots, back-wall shots, three-wall “Z” shots, and low corner shots that barely bounce. The better your opponent is, the more precise and skillful your own shots must become. And the more difficult the shot you are attempting, the smaller and smaller the margin for error becomes.
And when you execute one of those shots perfectly, it is exhilarating. It is a thing of beauty.
But because those shots are difficult, you will often almost execute them perfectly.
The shot was well-conceived.
Your positioning was good.
Your execution was strong.
But not quite strong enough.
The ball was just a little too high.
Or just a little too wide.
Or just a little too reachable.
I call those the Almost Beautiful shots.
Technically, they are mistakes because they failed to accomplish their purpose. But they are very different from careless errors or poor play. In fact, among evenly matched opponents, I have come to believe that games are often decided by the margin between one player’s Almost Beautiful shots and the other’s.
Of course, luck occasionally matters. Gross mistakes sometimes matter too.
But the most exhilarating games—the games between highly capable competitors—are often decided by the Almost Beautiful Margin of Mistakes.
So, what lessons do I take from this for leading a company or a team?
First, as organizations mature and competition becomes stronger, the margin between success and failure often becomes very small. At high levels of execution, catastrophic mistakes are actually less common than narrowly missed opportunities.
And in business, just as in racquetball, success is often relative rather than absolute.
You do not have to execute perfectly to win. You simply need to execute more consistently, more intelligently, and with fewer Almost Beautiful mistakes than your competitors over time.
That reality creates both opportunity and pressure.
Organizations that stop striving because they fear imperfection often discover that their competitors did not stop striving. Over time, the margin compounds.
The lessons of racquetball court become even more pronounced in doubles or cutthroat where success depends not merely on your own execution, but on the coordinated execution of multiple players.
Now the margin of mistakes is shared.
One player may position well while another anticipates poorly. One may execute a brilliant shot only because their partner created the opening. Communication, trust, anticipation, rhythm, and recovery all begin to matter just as much as individual talent.
And interestingly, teams often lose not because anyone played terribly, but because the collective margin of Almost Beautiful mistakes slowly accumulates over the course of a game.
A shot was almost covered.
A rotation was almost anticipated.
A setup was almost communicated clearly enough.
Over time, those tiny gaps compound.
Organizations often work the same way.
Most teams do not fail because of incompetent team members. They fail because coordination, communication, timing, trust, or shared awareness repeatedly miss excellence by just a small margin.
The second lesson for organizations or teams is that not all mistakes are equal.
Some mistakes arise from carelessness, ego, laziness, or poor preparation. Those deserve correction.
But other mistakes are the byproduct of intelligent risk-taking, difficult execution, creative thinking, or bold attempts to accomplish something excellent. Those “Almost Beautiful” mistakes should not always be punished. Sometimes they should be studied, appreciated, and even quietly celebrated.
An organization that cannot tolerate Almost Beautiful mistakes will eventually stop attempting beautiful things.
And finally, leaders must learn the difference between failure and near-success.
A fearful organization treats every imperfect outcome as proof that the attempt was foolish.
A healthy organization learns to recognize when the system is actually producing increasingly capable people who are operating near the edge of excellence.
That edge is uncomfortable.
But it is also where extraordinary things begin to happen.
So here’s a question worth considering:
What “Almost Beautiful” efforts in your organization are being treated as failures when they may actually be evidence of people stretching toward excellence?
And just as importantly:
Are you building a culture that punishes every imperfect outcome… or one that helps people learn how to execute difficult things better over time?
Sometimes an Almost Beautiful result is evidence that people are getting very close to something excellent.