Handling Mistakes

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As per AI – Mistake is an unintentional action, decision or judgement that produces an incorrect or unwanted outcome. It results from inattention to details, poor reasoning, lack of knowledge rather than malicious intent.

We are discussing here the ways and means in which a mistake or the person making a mistake in a corporate/NGO/Government setting should be dealt with. It is very obvious that the people seeing the mistakes being made, have higher authorities to report to and hence a very clear system/process should define how to handle these cases.

We start with the premises that mistakes do cause disruption in continuity of the activities, which in turn results in loss of time, effort and money for someone. In organizations, it may even result in not getting due justice to the people for their roles and actions in addition to the ones, previously stated.

The standard way of the managing in handling mistakes or people making mistakes by the managers is by way of shouting at them, ridiculing them, teaching or training them, demoting them, firing them and so on. These are all fine, depending upon the severity of losses made, due to this mistake. We also need to understand that shouting, ridiculing etc will make very less effect on the employees as most of them are al\ready under great stress due to the mistake they have committed. Their mind would have already shut off itself to any threats, teaching or cajoling.

When a mistake is made, the first thing that comes to my mind, as a manager, is how did it happen and not who did it. There is a huge difference between the two. In first, I am looking for finding the fault in the system. In the second, I am looking for blame to be directed to someone for the mistake. The second does not serve any long-term purpose.

I feel that the only way to reduce mistakes in any organization is to convert them into an error. (An error strays away from a standard or specific rule, while a mistake implies a misunderstanding or a wrong judgement call.) My primary concern for the mistakes being made is the possibility of this not happening in the future. This means that every time a mistake takes place, I should look into as how the mistake does not take place in future again. This will mean looking at my processes and systems, if they are in order, and if they look in order in process and system documentation, are they being monitored and implemented? These two simple actions can make sure that the organization becomes mistake free or error free sooner than later. If we standardize all our operations in a fashion, it is easy to implement. The system will get error free soon.

Any mistake happening in an organization should be taken up as a collective failure than an individual failure. If the management looks for ways and means to improve the process, people and systems being used there, don’t you think that the chances of someone making a mistake will get reduced? The psychological safety that prevents the people from clarifying their doubts, asking seniors basic and advanced questions, if provided, can easily reduce the number of mistakes being made there.

When the organizations hire a newcomer, they fully vet them for their knowledge, skills and integrity. After that the newcomers are trained. Rarely anyone is sent to do specific work without any teaching. Catching and ragging them on first mistake does not sound logical, because most of the normal people after getting a new job try sincerely to do whatever they are assigned to. A caring manger trying to help them when they make a mistake will turn organizational culture into something that cannot be done otherwise.

People make mistakes and will continue to make the same. No one is so perfect that they will never make any mistake. When mistakes are made, let the team, be the team to support the person, not crucify them. If we want to play “The infinite game” as explained by Simon Sinek in his book, we have to change our way of doing things. This article is just one specific way in handling mistakes. Come back to me for a discussion on the same.