Effective Persistence

In most teams, persistence gets celebrated. Keep going. Push through. Don’t give up.

That said, it’s worth asking—what kind of persistence actually works?

Because not all persistence helps. There’s the kind that keeps trying the same thing over and over, hoping something will eventually shift. It feels like progress, but often it’s just motion without momentum.

Then there’s another kind. A smarter version. It doesn’t just keep going, it keeps evolving. It notices when something isn’t working and looks for an alternative way in. It adapts. It imagines. It looks for solutions.

That, to me, is the persistence that actually moves things forward. I would call it effective persistence.

Not just pushing harder. Pushing better.