Admitting Mistakes

My wife scraped up her relatively new car yesterday. Quick background: our two cars spend 90% of their lives in parking garages. Our condo has a parking garage, her office has a parking garage, and our gym has a parking garage. We live near Washington, DC and from here in, it's mostly garages. It is bound to happen.

Ask yourself: are you quick to admit mistakes in the business world? It's not always easy. It takes confidence and another word to mention: it takes a lot of trust.

Trust? Remember when you admit mistakes to other people they can have a major range in their reactions. Some may pummel you. "How dumb was that?" "Why did you let that happen?" "How could you let that happen?"

Others may support you. "It's not that big of a deal." "OK, you messed up, so how do we make the best of this?" "I am sure it will not happen again." "Do not beat yourself up over it." "Look on the bright side here...how can we learn from this?"

Now this is not about competence. If you are continually making mistakes that are costly to your team and company that is a whole separate issue. Let's just focus on the reaction to mistakes, assuming they are not consistently happening. We are also not talking about intent. If mistakes are intentional, that is obviously a character issue, and that is for another post. We'll assume relative competence and strong character when talking about this issue.

What kind of mistake environment do you have with your team? Are people readily able to admit them? Remember when people try to minimize or cover up mistakes, there is usually an extra negative that comes from that. It may take more time to deal with it which inevitably increases costs. (Obviously the result could also be worse, much worse.) It also fosters an environment of distrust which will permeate throughout the team.

This might sound kind of weird but when my wife came into the house last night and finished talking about her car incident, I was kind of on a high. Not because I am a sick devious person who likes to see others make mistakess … it was because while knowing she felt bad about it, I could see it in her eyes that she KNEW how I would respond, and how she trusted me, and that encourages me to act in similar ways.

The first place to start: yourself. How can your team be comfortable with being forthright in their errors if you can't? What kind of mistake environment are you creating? Think of a future where mistake admitting comes fast and bluntly because of the environment of trust your team has created.