Tag Archives: mistakes

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Are you human?

Leave a comment

Some leaders believe they must be held in the highest regard relative to their abilities.  Humility is considered to be a weakness.  Strong and decisive are their bywords.

For these individuals, acknowledging they might not have been right is not acceptable.   They believe this could reduce their effectiveness relative to commanding others.

Strength from Conviction

An apology is not a behaviour these strong dictatorial leaders will ever entertain.   They believe others will not follow them unless they are perceived to be infallible.

Sadly, we are all human and to quote Alexander Pope “To err is human …..”.  While the strong and forceful superman approach can work experience shows it is rarely sustainable.

On the whole, others appreciate perceived sincerity over false bravado and while a clear direction can often achieve results quicker they will not be of sustainable quality and usually fall apart when the leader departs.

Strength from Empathy

While it is typically harder to collaborate as opposed to direct this approach enables people to feel empathy toward the leader and their needs.

It is, after all, easier to bond with those we can identify.  Fear can drive behaviour but it is not the optimal way to achieve the best results.

Demonstrating normal human characteristics, of which one is not being perfect, that is making mistakes is more admired than not.  By acting to correct mistakes you have acknowledged, you set a great example for others.

This approach is both appreciated and copied.  As a result the results are both of a higher quality but also will last.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Wasted Effort

Leave a comment

Forward motion does not necessarily equate to positive results.  Humans in motion is normal and practical but taking action might have an effect and alas it might have no impact. 

The point is the importance of recognizing doing something might not be a worthwhile expenditure of energy, in and of itself.   Unfortunately acting without due care and caution could result not only in no impact but also in a negative impact causing the need for rework.

Planning, Focus, Validation

Ideally all behaviour and activity you undertake should be with a concious purpose.  Understanding the reason to put things in motion makes the effort more likely to succeed.

If you are not clear on what the purpose is the outcome may be good, bad or indifferent.  In this case luck is the predominent predictor of the outcome.

Driving Achievement

There are times when you may choose to go with the flow and let fate determine what happens.  As long as that maps to your initial expectations, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

More often you have a sense of purpose.  To help reduce the risk of wasted effort, the first step is to clarify in your mind what success will look like.

That is to be very definitive about what you intend to have occur.  This leads of course to planning how to do it and finally execution.

Mistakes

One of your top objectives should not only be to follow your plan but to check along the way things are proceeding as expected.  

This is a critical requirement to avoid wasted effort and rework.  Recently I spent days working on a task, with a great deal of forward momentum, only to find I had made a significant error early on.

Sadly, I had to start all over again.  I was busy do the work, but not productive.  I knew what and how but forgot to validate along the way to confirm I was on track.

It’s worth giving some thought before leaping ahead toward your next goal.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Making Mistakes

Leave a comment

Life is full of mistakes.  When you make a decision and/or take an action that turns out to be wrong, it is a mistake.  Everyones makes mistakes.

Life without mistakes is highly improbable, but also would be awfully boring.  Making mistakes is not a goal but not making them shouldn’t be an objective either.

Embracing Mistakes

Mistakes can have negative consequences.  They can also uncover paths to success or provide valuable experiences that can be used to avoid even greater mistakes.

It can be exhilarating to attempt to scale the mountain, especially when you succeed.  Fear of making a mistake and perhaps not even trying could be as costly as the mistake itself.

Balance

A common theme in so many of my posts is finding the optimal balances between opposites.  In this case, the balance is effectively between caution (to mitigate the risk of a mistake) and boldness( to go where no man has gone before)

Too much caution and places where no one has ever been will remain unexplored.  On the other hand too little caution when bursting into the unknown may have dire consquences, even death.

Recovering from Mistakes

The most important part of any discussion of mistakes is how to behave when they occur.  First and foremost, always acknowledge the mistake and acquiesce to your complicity in it.

This is critical because a defensive posture envaribly magnifies the mistakes.  With acceptance, it is much easier to move to the next step – resolution.

Following acceptance, analyze the impacts and consequences of the mistake  and plan a course of behaviour that results in maximum mitigation.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Making the Wrong Choice

Leave a comment

Not choosing for fear of making the wrong choice can actually be more harmful then choosing incorrectly.  This is commonly known in bureaucratic  circles as analysis paralysis.

Choosing incorrectly can have catastrophic potentially irreversable results but within reasonable risk limits, not choosing can lead to different but still painful negative results, possibly over a longer term.

Mistakes are Necessary

The value equation associated with decision is a balance between the potential negative outcomes versus positive outcomes  weighed against the time factor.

In many cases the longer it takes to make the decision (usually the cautious approach) can diminish the likelyhood of positive outcomes.

On the other hand, deciding without enough factual information increases the risk of negative results.  Taking too long though could result in the decision seeming sound but in fact due to changes over time it has become flawed.

Don’t Focus on the Mistake

Lack of action most frequently leads to lack of results.  This is an argument for making a decision and acting even if there is a potential for error.

However, this needs to be a balanced approach based on the decision value equation.  Ultimately, there is never a certainty of a positive result but with reasoned analysis the likelyhood of success can be estimated.

Fear of being wrong should not be a factor in whatever action is selected but rather likelyhood of a positive versus a negative result.

The message of this post, don’t let fear rule, no worries being acting and being wrong is far better than not acting at all.