Cratering. What's Good and What's Not?

The siege at Petersburg was unprecedented in American history. Grant attacked in an attempt to take Richmond and end the war, Lee defended. Although Lee did very well, Grant had more forces and manpower, and was not going to withdraw no matter what. Both sides dug trenches and put up earthworks. Grant just kept making the line longer and longer until Lee was stretched to a point where he could not defend it all. Then he attacked along the entire line.
In the middle of this almost year-long conflict, a group of Pennsylvania miners were stuck waiting for things to break. I guess they got tired of waiting around, which must have been brutal in the Virginia heat, and did what miners do: they dug. They dug a long tunnel completely under the Confederate lines.
It was a brilliant idea: they would dig a tunnel, pack it full of explosives, and blow a huge whole in the line. Attacking through the hole, perhaps they could end the war. It was perfect -- right up until when it happened.
First the fuse went out, then after somebody crawled into the hole and re-lit it (not a job I would want to do), the explosion blew a hole 170-feet long by 80-feet wide. Thirty-feet at its deepest, it even tossed two 1700-pound cannons into the air. Nobody had seen anything like it before in their lives.
So in rushed the army, into a scene that was catastrophic: men, cannons, new earth lay all about the site. They were in such shock that the attacking men paused while looking at such a result. During the pause the Confederates regrouped and counter-attacked, securing the crater.
The crater is still there today, a reminder that even good ideas executed by the right people fail. "It was a tremendous success, except that it failed," one Union officer was quoted.
Today, companies like Google pride themselves on allowing their people to do what people do best: innovate. But when you're a hammer, the world looks like a nail, and sometimes hammering is not going to help. In addition, it's not always easy to tell a great idea from a disastrous one, even after it is executed. And finally, being prepared for "what's next" and follow-through are critical for any endeavor to succeed. The Confederates didn't have the brilliant idea: they were simply able to act appropriately and quickly. That should be a lesson to us all.