Published April 2001

Learn how to deal with mistakes in workplace

One of the distinguishing characteristics of successful people is the way they deal with mistakes — their own and those of others. It isn’t the only thing about them that is linked to success, of course, but it is important, and we all can learn something from the way they handle their own failures.

When we look at the lives and careers of successful people, we often find a trail of mishaps, mistakes, failures and screwups. Certainly, in American history, it would be difficult to find an individual who failed so thoroughly, so consistently and at so many different things as Abraham Lincoln.

He failed in business; he failed in farming; and he lost more elections than he won. Yet he pressed on with his life to become one of America’s greatest presidents.

Many top executives, and most successful entrepreneurs, will tell you that somewhere in their background there is a failure, a significant screwup or a monumentally bad decision. Some will admit that it was only luck that kept their mistakes from wrecking their business or their careers.

Others, however, paid the full price for their screwups and lost their jobs or their businesses.

What gave them the resilience, the energy, the will to recover and get on with their lives to achieve success while so many of us keep reliving our mistakes in a sort of real-life “Groundhog Day”?

No one knows for certain. But we do know that in the workplace, the ability to deal with mistakes is a crucial management skill.

Mistakes and failures become a management issue for the obvious reason that they have expensive effects on profits, quality, brand image and customer loyalty.

Initially, managers have to sort out whether they are dealing with a systemic error or with the far more common kind, the human errors or lapses in judgment that spice up our working days.

Systemic errors can be dealt with by the quality-assurance experts, if your firm is large enough to have them, or by your own scientific approach to each process involved.

Reducing human error, though, is more difficult, and managers have to understand something about the psychology of mistakes and how individuals, including themselves, view them and recover from them.

From a mistake-making standpoint, you are likely to find four types of individuals inhabiting the workplace:

— Those who make mistakes frequently, even constantly.

— Those who, by their own reckoning, have never made a mistake in their lives.

— Those who make few mistakes but are devastated by them.

— Those who occasionally make mistakes but seem to be able to deal with them, learn something and move on.

Managers need to recognize the differences, because each requires a different approach.

The first type of individual is clearly encountering a problem that may be due to poor training, poor skills or aptitude, or lack of interest and motivation. As managers, we often indulge in a combination of inertia and wishful thinking — maybe the person will change and the problem will go away. It won’t.

The second type is a much bigger problem. They present a major obstacle to team-building, because to preserve their record, every mistake throughout the organization must be accounted for and attributed to some (other) individual. And while sometimes workers like this can be “turned around” into team players, the odds are against you.

The third type of individual has to be worked with to understand that mistakes are part of the human experience. To many people, especially those who identify so intensely with their jobs, their mistakes always seem much larger to them than they do to you, the manager. Keep that in mind when you discuss errors and how to reduce them.

The fourth type of individual doesn’t need anything at all right now, and, in fact, good managers always learn something from their best people.

Good managers use preparation and training to avoid mistakes. How we deal with the mistakes that are made, though, can make the difference between a good organization and a great one.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes "Your Business" in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.

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