Have you made a mistake lately?

06.12.06 06:27 PM By S.Swaminathan

I often see people in a state of intertia and inaction because they are afraid to make mistakes. They don't want to look stupid and ignorant. I don't see anything wrong if one makes a mistake. Organizations suffer from poor customer interactions because of such people. They neither take action nor learn from others. Hence, they leave a lot of customers dissatisifed.  Jeffery Philips has an interesting post on the same:

When you are right no one remembers, and when you are wrong no one forgets.  There is so much fear in many organizations about being wrong - on the wrong side of a decision, backing the wrong manager, making a big mistake - that often any action that does happen happens either automatically (transactional stuff) or because we've back ourselves into a wall from a time or budget standpoint and just have to make a decision.

Some of this thinking springs from the mythos that really smart people don't make mistakes.  I think that's wrong.  I think really smart people make mistakes, they just learn and adapt a lot more quickly than others do, and they find ways to mitigate the outcomes of those mistakes.  It has been frequently said that Edison knew 1000 ways not to make a lightbulb.  Edison didn't invent the bulb, or the electric light.  He actually dramatically improved the longevity of the bulb and how the bulb and the electrical socket (and eventually electrical distribution) would work.  But only after trying thousands of combinations of filaments and bulbs.  This record of experimentation and failure gave him a great base of knowledge and helped increase the odds of success.  What's not so well known is that Edison championed direct current (DC) power rather than alternating current (AC) and so lost the advantage to others in the long run on electricity distribution.

Being wrong isn't the problem.  Being wrong consistently is a problem....

S.Swaminathan

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