Great discussion point Len Leonid Mizrah , thank you!

Perseverance aims at positivity and truth while stubbornness negatively blinds one from the light of truth in research and in life.

Dickson Adom

Dear Dr. Dickson Adom,

The question isn't what is perseverance or stubbornness, but about how to be aware that one has already crossed the redline separating those two.

Let's consider a couple of practical examples. First, is a big project involving 100 - 200 engineers (say a microprocessor chip design project). A company management (Financials, Operations, Sales, Engineering, Marketing, and top VPs) discuss/negotiate all details and come up with a plan to spend a certain amount of money and complete the project in 18 month. Once accepted, this plan's performance is being monitored weekly, monthly, and quarterly. If key milestones of the project begin lagging behind, and general spirit of the team is deteriorating, the management reassess the situation and may reshuffle the staff, the plan's schedule, and make other preventive measures. After a while, if the project is not under schedule, under budget, and under performance goals, chances are high that the project will be cancelled, and key culprits most likely will be laid off. The collective top management decision fixed the moment, when perseverance in continuing the project would be jeopardizing the company's financial, marketing and sales status, and the top management well being as well. So that the project cancellation is a sober decision to prevent stubbornness in insisting on following on the prior plan. This highly simplified example took out personal tensions and dramas during the whole process. The bottom line is that though the company is suffered losses, but it is not brought to a disastrous crash.

The second example is a small scientific group of 2-5 people agreed with the management to undertake a certain experimental study (let's say studying a standard semiconductor material having new unusual impurities). Let's assume that the team was successful to quickly obtain the material to study, perform a number of measurements using different experimental methods, and eventually found that the results obtained are complex, non repeatable, and do not have a transparent physical explanation. It could be because the foundry's technology in growing those crystals is not stable yet, or just the actual physical processes are highly complex, etc. The bottom line is that the team has a lot of data that looks like a complete 'zoology', that is no clear cut picture comes up from the study. This is the turning point in deciding what to do next. Publish this 'zoology' is neither realistic, nor prestigious. People spent a lot of time and being quite disarrayed. Usually a project leader and a top manager ought to make a decision to either continue to be in a perseverance mode, or cancel the project eliminating a stubbornness situation. This second example is also quite simplified and a schematic one. However, it gives some idea of importance and often necessity to make conscience adult decisions about the future of the research process.

@Sajda Taha Mahmood

Dear Prof. Sajda Taha Mahmood,

Thanks for your interesting posts. Researchers used to be very inspired people and perseverance is individually encouraged. We should distinguish a small group of researchers, and a large group having several hierarchies of management above. The latter situation examples I've described in several examples above on this thread. In a case of a small group, usually a group itself ought to decide as to whether they've reached the boundary between perseverance and stubbornness. It is more difficult and painful to come to this point, and my question was how to identify the practical indications that it's happened.

The example of non-subordination is happening sometimes, and it's easier to resolve, than expecting a conscience decision coming at the right time.

Great discussion point Len Leonid Mizrah , thank you!