Surface Ripples

Attitudes to Mistakes

Over the 30 or years of my professional career, I’ve worked in different countries with different cultures. In all of them, one of the aspects of life that interested me most was the attitude to mistakes.  

In some cultures and societies, people are willing to admit they have made an error, apologise for it, and put it right.  In others, admitting you’ve made a mistake is taboo. Even more of a challenge in such societies is pointing out mistakes and persuading, those who have made them to take ownership.

In extreme cases, criticising a government, or a powerful individual for a mistake may well get you deported, locked up or worse!

In these circumstances, the challenge is how to first point out the error and secondly have it corrected and used as a learning tool.  Some might ask what about having it acknowledged?  My response would be forget acknowledging it, the important thing to do is to learn and change (people will acknowledge it to themselves, have no fear!)

In one country, the government had a habit of announcing some new decision, process, law or other change.  Following the inevitable protests, they would then announce that that decision, process and so on had been “withdrawn for further consultation”.

This was a perfectly satisfactory face-saving formula which enabled that government to appear in control. Some Western governments have tried a variation of this theme: they “leak” a pending change and gauge public reaction following the leak.  If it’s favourable, they press ahead. If not, the change is simply not implemented.

None of us like admitting that we’ve made a mistake. This is human nature. By doing so, we admit that we are lacking in knowledge, expertise, care or haven’t thought the decision through properly.  Whatever it is, criticising ourselves is the hardest thing we can do.  As I mentioned before, in some cases to admit to any kind of weakness is to invite retribution which may result in the “removal” of an individual, a government, or an institution.

As we go through life as business leaders, we need to be highly attuned to the sensitivities around us.  The problem is that these sensitivities vary, depending on individuals, cultures, governments and countries.

One has only to watch global politics to understand this. Take for example the Western way of doing things compared to that in the Far East or Middle East. It’s sometimes should come as no surprise that the actions of individuals or governments result in boycott, sanctions or other penalties.

Our only course is to learn from our mistakes and how to avoid them in the future.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  

Labels: Career, Leadership, Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 09:38