I read once there is no absolute success or absolute failure, only varying degrees of both. I am reminded of this when thinking about what happens when we make a bad call, a mistake. I can recall…uh, a few. Ask anyone who knows me. Peoria, Fort Smith, St. Louis, Kansas City, Hoboken and Denver. Yep, felt that moment. And those are just the places I have lived. There have also been moments elsewhere.
Let’s be real…we make mistakes. The illuminating moment is what happens next or maybe just what was learned. I “biff” it and then have to do something with the information. Right? We all fall down. We chose left when right was the better option. We asked the wrong question. We made “x” the priority when “y” was only obvious as the better choice after there were words exchanged (or God forbid tears). We watch as the clouds and moment pass by and wonder what we could have done differently to not suck. Then what happens? Then what happens? That is not a mistake…I asked the question twice to illicit a sublime “aha kinda” thing. While the mistake matters, I contend it is what we do after the mistake which matters most. We must also be OK with making mistakes. That is a mindset thing. I believe, despite any mistake we make in life, however incredibly disheartening it may be, we are all capable to change our way, our behavior. I do. I believe we learn from the things which go left when right is better. We may even hurt someone else or disrupt the flow of “coolness” or rhythm of the job we do. We can learn from what we do wrong, when we make a mistake.
When I was a director for a pretty big company, I made a couple of “doosees” (spelling wrong, just go with the phonetics). One immediately comes to mind when I was given a task with absolutely no direction. I became frustrated and started to leave a very inappropriate message. One of my subordinates stopped me (thank you). By the way, not really my subordinate…more my peer (unless you hold true to hierarchical management systems). Regardless, my mistake was not asking for the direction. Do you see the learning opportunity? My first reaction was, crap, I won’t get this done the right way and I am getting defensive or rather initiating some form of self-preservation. I had not reacted the right way. Did I ask for direction? No. I just took the task without the clarity and then got ticked off when it wasn’t going my way. Then I realized after the fact, it wasn’t the “going my way part”, it was that I had not asked the question (any question for that matter). Are you seeing how we as managers will very often have a mistake or make a mistake all because we did not ask a single question. How about this thought…when you don’t ask or tell or speak up, can the mistake compound? You bet.
So if we are going to make mistakes (which we will), what makes for a good recovery or disaster maintenance?
Own it. Nothing is worse than someone who obviously makes the mistake and then starts to point fingers at everything and everyone else other than themselves.
Grace is often given by others when mistakes happen. Accept it and give it back to others often.
Learn from what happened. Find the thing that needs to change or evolve or amplify.
Ask questions. When in doubt or have something that doesn’t make sense, ask your boss, your team, your peer or even your friend or family member.
Share all of this with others. Mistakes are not just learning experiences for you; they create a context for others who may not be where you are right now.
Be open to how a mistake can allow you to be better than you were yesterday. It may just be an opportunity to vent or a little self-discovery. Mistakes are worth it.
Let me end this way. Perhaps the worst mistake is the one you are not aware you have made. Make sense? I have someone with whom I provided some thoughts and services. I have left many messages and have received nothing back in return. My immediate thoughts are “Was it something I said? Was it something I did? What did I do wrong?” Maybe I am overthinking this, but it does cause me to pause and wonder – did I make a mistake, and more importantly, what can I learn from this? I will be writing another book shortly on a concept about when you just know something. Obviously it will be centered in the management arena, but I believe we all just know when something isn’t right. We “biffed” it. And sometimes we don’t know we “biffed” it. What happens next?
Cheers