I decided to get out of my home office today and visit two places that I desperately needed to go: the library and Starbucks. I needed some good fiction and you’ll see to the right that I chose Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I’ve been wanting to read this since high school. Not exactly light reading, but I need to keep filling my head with good literature.
Then, off to the local Starbucks for a latte and some thinking. For some reason, perfectionism and mistakes have been on my mind lately. Since I took the risk that’s leaving my comfy job for the solo life, I’ve been meditating on whether it was a good decision. Add now my realization that I need and want to return to organization life. Here’s what I’ve come up with…
What exactly is a mistake? Curious, I went to dictionary.com for a definition and found this:
An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.
Gee, that’s awfully harsh. Here’s my definition, which I believe it a lot more forgiving:
A result that deviates from an expected or desired outcome and encourages new insights.
If someone told you that you made a mistake, which one would you prefer to consider? If you want to encourage your staff to take risks, which definition of mistake would urge them to be more fearless in their actions?
As a recovering perfectionist, I’m learning more now than ever before. Mistakes are always opportunities to grow if we can get beyond the fear. Problem is that fear hits us when we view mistakes from the first definition. Who wants to be accused of having defective knowledge or being careless? However, if we reconsider our definition of a mistake, we might just realize that the outcome of a mistake is just as relevant to our own growth as a success. It’s all in how we look at it.
So, learn something this weekend. Make a mistake.
Garth, terrific point. It further hightlights the gist of the article that Rosa pointed us to in Inc. Magazine. As managers and educators (both leaders), we can offer staff and students the opportunity to make mistakes. At the same time emphasize the whole reason to make the mistake is to learn through experience.
I used to tell my staff that the first time they made a mistake, it was mine to worry about. That was a very freeing idea for them. However, the second time they made the mistake, it was theirs and they would have to deal with the consequences. I expected them to learn, correct, and ultimately, grow.
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