Failure has a Positive Image -- when it's fixed.

Rule number one about calling a product "successful": It's only good if the target audience buys it.

Successful people know how to create what customers want. They also own it and move on when no one's buying.

Few if anyone gets on base every time they step up to the plate. I can't think of any entrepreneurs who haven't struck out a few times. Maybe their idea was ahead of its time. Maybe their idea wasn't sustainable with the resources they had to execute it, maybe the economic or political climate changed at the wrong time and made their idea irrelevant. Maybe their idea just plain sucked.

Those who own ideas that suck see one of two things happen: they learn from the experience and create a winner in their next at-bat, or they salvage part of their original concept because they divorce themselves from the notion that they are all-knowing. Then they accept good feedback and assistance.

This is what Howard Schultz did so effectively with Starbucks. He knew the atmosphere had changed, that some of the food service was sending more people away than it was bringing in, that staff needed to reconnect with customers. He took it back to basics and put it back on the road to success. Not only was this good for Mr. Schultz' bank accounts, it kept thousands employed. It probably also gives him some street creds with his current “No Labels” campaign – a movement to freeze political contributions until The President and Congress take responsibility for the budget mess. It's another example of an opportunity to look in the mirror, own the meltdown and fix it.

It's a good case study for those stubbornly cemented in continuing to run their not-so-brilliant ideas into the ground, taking hard workers with them.

If you are working for anyone besides yourself and more importantly if you have employees, you have an obligation to be successful. Measure your success through research, customer feedback, social media input, whatever it takes to know whether what you're offering is working for the public. Look in the mirror and respond to the information.

If you have money to burn and months to waste, then it's probably OK to be married to your own ideas—as long as you're playing with your own dime and your own time. When you have investors and employees,however, you are showing reckless disregard for their funds and their futures.

There is no shame in failure, but denial is a crying shame. Ask anyone laid off recently because a bad idea didn't get fixed.