As a business leader, I found that one of the scariest things
to do was to give your people the freedom to make mistakes. While
mistakes allow individuals to learn and grow, they can also be very
costly to any company. Scared as I was, I knew that truly great leaders
found ways to allow their people to take these risks, and I genuinely
wanted to be a great leader. I wanted to help my employees to grow. So I
set out to discover how to accomplish this without placing my company
in jeopardy.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” - Meg Cabot
I quickly discovered that the first step was to determine the areas
of the business where a mistake could take place without causing too
much damage. I took careful attention to make sure that any areas where
we would damage our clients and the trust they had placed in us were off
limits for significant risk without serious executive involvement and
oversight. I identified other areas where I could feel more comfortable
allowing people the freedom to experiment on new and better ways of
doing things.
The second step was to communicate to the employees that we were
setting an official company policy: Making any mistake once was OK, so
long as it was an honest mistake made while attempting to do what they
felt was the right thing. Making any mistake once was OK, but repeating
that same mistake a second time was NOT OK. The hard, fast rule was that
if you made any mistake for the first time the entire team would have
your back in fixing that mistake if anything went wrong. However, if you
ever repeated the mistake a second time, then you were 100 percent on
your own to face the consequences. This rule applied for every
first-time occurrence of each new mistake you made.
We all make mistakes. Every one of us. If we aren’t making mistakes, then we likely aren’t trying enough new things outside our comfort zone, and that itself is a mistake. That process is the best way to learn and grow as a person. As John Wooden once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.” Mistakes
are the pathway to great ideas and innovation. Mistakes are the
stepping stones to moving outside the comfort zone to the growing zone
where new discoveries are made and great lessons are learned.
Mistakes
are not failures, they are simply the process of eliminating ways that
won’t work in order to come closer to the ways that will.
Great leaders allow their people the freedom to make mistakes. But
good employees are those who when mistakes are made 1. Learn from them,
2. Own them, 3. Fix them, and 4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the
same mistake will never be repeated again.
1. Learn from them: Good employees recognize that they have,
in fact, made an honest mistake. They do not get defensive about it,
rather they are willing to look objectively at their mistake, recognize
what they did wrong, and understand why their choice or actions were the
wrong thing to do.
2. Own them: Good employees take accountability for their
mistakes. They admit them readily. They don’t make excuses for their
mistake, rather they acknowledge that yes, they made a mistake and they
express openly what lesson they have learned from that mistake. They go
on to express steps 3 and 4 below.
3. Fix them: Good employees do what it takes to rectify their
wrongs. They are willing to do whatever they can to fix the problem and
make it right. Certainly there are times when the damage is done and
recompense cannot be made, but good employees do their very best to
repair whatever damage has been done to the best of their ability. They
always establish a timeline with follow up for when the problem will be
fixed and make sure that progress is communicated throughout the process
so everyone feels the urgency and care with which they are correcting
the problem.
4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the same mistake will never be repeated again: This is the most critical step in the learning process.
When a mistake has clearly been made, the most important thing anyone
can do is figure out what safety nets and roadblocks can be carefully
established to ensure that this same mistake will never take place
again. Document this step so the lessons learned and the safeguards
setup can always go beyond you. Do everything in your power to help
others learn from your mistake so they don’t have to experience them on
their own to gain the lesson you’ve learned.
The steps to correcting mistakes apply to any area of life. Whether
it’s business life or home life or personal life, the principles of
apologizing remain the same. Good employees make a lot of mistakes, and
truly great employees are those have mastered the art of apologizing for
those mistakes:
Great People Practice The Six A’s of a Proper Apology:
- Admit - I made a mistake.
- Apologize - I am sorry for making the mistake.
- Acknowledge - I recognize where I went wrong that caused my mistake to occur.
- Attest - I plan to do the following to fix the mistake on this specific timeline.
- Assure - I will put the following protections in place to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again.
- Abstain – Never repeat that same mistake twice.
People who implement the Six A’s will find that the level of trust
and respect others have for them will grow tenfold. People who implement
the Six A’s will find that others will be quicker to forgive them and
more likely to extend a second chance. It’s not the making of a mistake
that is generally the problem; it’s what you do with it afterward that
really counts.
As a business leader, I found that one of the scariest things
to do was to give your people the freedom to make mistakes. While
mistakes allow individuals to learn and grow, they can also be very
costly to any company. Scared as I was, I knew that truly great leaders
found ways to allow their people to take these risks, and I genuinely
wanted to be a great leader. I wanted to help my employees to grow. So I
set out to discover how to accomplish this without placing my company
in jeopardy.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” - Meg Cabot
I quickly discovered that the first step was to determine the areas
of the business where a mistake could take place without causing too
much damage. I took careful attention to make sure that any areas where
we would damage our clients and the trust they had placed in us were off
limits for significant risk without serious executive involvement and
oversight. I identified other areas where I could feel more comfortable
allowing people the freedom to experiment on new and better ways of
doing things.
The second step was to communicate to the employees that we were
setting an official company policy: Making any mistake once was OK, so
long as it was an honest mistake made while attempting to do what they
felt was the right thing. Making any mistake once was OK, but repeating
that same mistake a second time was NOT OK. The hard, fast rule was that
if you made any mistake for the first time the entire team would have
your back in fixing that mistake if anything went wrong. However, if you
ever repeated the mistake a second time, then you were 100 percent on
your own to face the consequences. This rule applied for every
first-time occurrence of each new mistake you made.
We all make mistakes. Every one of us. If we aren’t making mistakes, then we likely aren’t trying enough new things outside our comfort zone, and that itself is a mistake. That process is the best way to learn and grow as a person. As John Wooden once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.” Mistakes
are the pathway to great ideas and innovation. Mistakes are the
stepping stones to moving outside the comfort zone to the growing zone
where new discoveries are made and great lessons are learned. Mistakes
are not failures, they are simply the process of eliminating ways that
won’t work in order to come closer to the ways that will.
Great leaders allow their people the freedom to make mistakes. But
good employees are those who when mistakes are made 1. Learn from them,
2. Own them, 3. Fix them, and 4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the
same mistake will never be repeated again.
1. Learn from them: Good employees recognize that they have,
in fact, made an honest mistake. They do not get defensive about it,
rather they are willing to look objectively at their mistake, recognize
what they did wrong, and understand why their choice or actions were the
wrong thing to do.
2. Own them: Good employees take accountability for their
mistakes. They admit them readily. They don’t make excuses for their
mistake, rather they acknowledge that yes, they made a mistake and they
express openly what lesson they have learned from that mistake. They go
on to express steps 3 and 4 below.
3. Fix them: Good employees do what it takes to rectify their
wrongs. They are willing to do whatever they can to fix the problem and
make it right. Certainly there are times when the damage is done and
recompense cannot be made, but good employees do their very best to
repair whatever damage has been done to the best of their ability. They
always establish a timeline with follow up for when the problem will be
fixed and make sure that progress is communicated throughout the process
so everyone feels the urgency and care with which they are correcting
the problem.
4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the same mistake will never be repeated again: This is the most critical step in the learning process.
When a mistake has clearly been made, the most important thing anyone
can do is figure out what safety nets and roadblocks can be carefully
established to ensure that this same mistake will never take place
again. Document this step so the lessons learned and the safeguards
setup can always go beyond you. Do everything in your power to help
others learn from your mistake so they don’t have to experience them on
their own to gain the lesson you’ve learned.
The steps to correcting mistakes apply to any area of life. Whether
it’s business life or home life or personal life, the principles of
apologizing remain the same. Good employees make a lot of mistakes, and
truly great employees are those have mastered the art of apologizing for
those mistakes:
Great People Practice The Six A’s of a Proper Apology:
- Admit - I made a mistake.
- Apologize - I am sorry for making the mistake.
- Acknowledge - I recognize where I went wrong that caused my mistake to occur.
- Attest - I plan to do the following to fix the mistake on this specific timeline.
- Assure - I will put the following protections in place to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again.
- Abstain – Never repeat that same mistake twice.
People who implement the Six A’s will find that the level of trust
and respect others have for them will grow tenfold. People who implement
the Six A’s will find that others will be quicker to forgive them and
more likely to extend a second chance. It’s not the making of a mistake
that is generally the problem; it’s what you do with it afterward that
really counts.
