Item #21: On Mistakes

I’ve had the recent pleasure of having to deal with the fact that I made a mistake. I know it sounds crazy to say it like that, but I have a morbid fear of making mistakes. And when I make one, I panic. Here’s why my mindset about making mistakes needs perspective (in case there is anyone out there who struggles with the same):

Truth 1: We Make Mistakes.

Obviously, the most important thing to say is that given that we are human beings and not machines, we make mistakes. We mis-compute, we ignore important information because of emotion, and we sometimes lose focus; we make mistakes. We all, often, make little mistakes, and sometimes we make big mistakes. And if that isn’t happening, then we probably are living in a cautious, restrained place, dotting our every ‘i’ and crossing our every ‘t’ to avoid mistakes. While this living may perhaps be a place of making fewer mistakes, I can’t imagine it is a place of liberated thinking or behaviour. So, if you’re going to be a free, fully functioning human, taking risks, then you are going to make mistakes.

Truth 2: Some Mistakes ARE a Big Deal.

Not all mistakes matter that much. If you forget to order coffee for the meeting, well, we’ll get by just fine. If you miss a zero (on the end) of a work estimate, and then do the work, well that might be a big deal. So be it. It’s true. Some mistakes are a big deal, and some cause big problems. When mistakes happen, the ideal situation is to have an accepting, collaborative team, client, boss, family, friend, who will jump in and help right the situation. The best of those (bosses, friends, clients) understand that humans make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and work with you empathetically to right it.

Truth 3: Even Big Mistakes don’t make you a Big Mistake.

Even if you make a big mistake, it doesn’t mean you are a big mistake. The greatest challenge when mistakes happen is not to generalize the mistake you made to suggest that you are incompetent, incapable, a “mistake-maker”. ‘Making’ a mistake is different from ‘being’ a mistake. And sometimes that is very hard to hang onto when you are in the midst of having made a mistake. Sometimes a mistake is an opportunity to teach you something and make you better at what you are doing, and other times a mistake is to teach you that you are doing the wrong thing and it is time for change. Either way, mistakes are a lesson, in being human.

What to do when you’ve made a mistake?

Accept it. Don’t try to talk around the mistake, internally to yourself, or externally with excuses to others.

Address it. Be straight-forward, clear and upfront. This is what has happened and this is why it happened.

Evaluate it. Stop to understand for yourself what led to the error, and determine what could be done to avoid it in the future.

Integrate it. Bring your new learning into everything you do from that point forward.

What not to do when you've made a mistake?

Berate yourself.

Generalize the mistake to yourself personally.

Lose your self-confidence.

Item #20: The Rule is Still 100% Percent

Below is the very first Guest Post on Curated, and the 'guest' of honour is no less than my very own Dad, Stuart McCulloch. Hope you enjoy.

The Rule is Still 100% Percent










It has been predicted that approximately 90 percent of all corporate dollars in the future will be spent on people.

It is predictions like this that add to the already present concerns for improved employee productivity. These concerns have elicited responses from the pundits of motivational theory from the experts on time management and a large number of other individuals and organizations who have all directed their attentions to improving employee attitudes, work patterns, and inevitably performance and productivity.

The effort suggests that employee productivity can, in fact, be increased. If this is so, then the present day worker cannot be applying himself fully to a one hundred percent effort.

What standards of employee performance should we expect? It appears that there are an increasing number of elements in the work force who are bent on maximizing their rewards and benefits for a minimal amount of a day’s work. Hopefully our standards of performance have not eroded to the point that mediocrity can be considered acceptable.

Perhaps we have failed to educate today’s graduates to realize that the school grading scheme changes within the work environment. Whereas a “C” grade was considered passable in the educational environment, nothing less than an “A” or 100 percent can be acceptable in the workplace. For example, it would be inappropriate for a truck driver to tell his boss that he successfully avoided 80% of other trucks on the road. How confident would we be in the care of a doctor who only aimed for an 80% survival rate for patients he had operated on?

The grading scheme is the same today as it was years ago and if anything, the performance level we should now demand of ourselves is probably higher. The truck driver has to contend with more crowded road conditions and faster speeds and is faced with an ever-reducing tolerance for errors on the road. The power of our computer systems that support physicians in the operating room can produce far-reaching and sometimes catastrophic results from a small programming error.

In today’s business we have to demand 100%. The goal is not impossible. In school, with the proper application of self to the work required, an “A” or 100% was possible. How many times, however, did we apply ourselves and how hard did we try?

It is easily recognizable that if the astronauts are not 100% accurate, they would miss the earth on their return from space. How hard are we all trying to achieve 100%?

Item #19: The Language of Fear

It’s yet another beautiful day in Toronto...but the power of the iPad means I can suntan and write at the same time. The only opportunity for improvement would be if I could have my painted toes buried in sand with water lapping at my feet...but hey I'll take what I can get!

Either way I am prompted today to talk about ‘The Language of Fear’. The lurking menace of fear disguises itself in many ways. I'm going to share four common disguises I hear along with their translated meaning. This should help you to be on the lookout for fears masquerading ways.

Fear in disguise #1: "Okay, let's be realistic here.”

What these words really mean: "I'm afraid to shoot for the moon in this given situation. I might not be able to reach the heights everyone is hoping for so let me just bring down the expectation level in general and ask everyone to be realistic.” To realistic, I say screw that. Shoot for the moon, be idealist and see what happens. In the words of Leo Burnett: If you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one but you won't end up with a handful of mud either.

Fear in disguise #2: "We don't have enough information.”

What these words really mean: "I don't have enough confidence yet to move ahead; what I really want is to delay, to give myself more time for that confidence to spontaneously appear." I’m not suggesting information doesn’t matter, and that at times it’s not true that we don’t have enough information, but often these words are fear masquerading and we need to be on the lookout for that. All the information in the world will not matter when confidence is the issue. Confidence comes from biting the bullet and giving it a go. Confidence comes from starting and then determining what additionally is needed, or desired. Confidence comes from action, not information.

Fear in disguise #3: "We just need to be careful that we don't end up looking stupid."

These just might be my most disliked fear words. Because basically, being careful to not look stupid is just about the surest way to be stupid. If you put the restraining brakes on right at the outset, you can be pretty damn sure you will be firing on half your potential cylinders, that you won’t really every take a shot at anything big. Here’s how I think the whole stupid thing plays out: about 15% of the time, you’ll deliver something that didn’t meet expectations and that’s going to happen whether you are worried about looking stupid or not; 80% of the time, you’ll deliver up to expectations and you’ll feel as though you did a good job and that’s going to happen whether you are worried about looking stupid or not. But here’s where stupid matters; about 5% of the time, some idea you had because you took a risk and weren’t worried about looking stupid will land, and the outcome will be great. It’s in that 5% that the magic happens. But see 5% isn’t a big percentage, and that 5% is only ever possible if you forget about looking stupid. 5% is a small percentage to screw around with. I say forget about stupid.

Fear in disguise #4: "This is going to be just like every other time."

These words may be the worst fear words of all. What they really mean is: “I've been here before. I've tried this before and it didn't work. Since it didn’t go anywhere then, I've already thrown in the towel and resigned myself to believing that I will not be able to create a different outcome this time.” It says that everything that is to come will mimic that which has already been. And this is the worst form of fear. Because this kind of fear is personal, rooted in the individual and can have pervasive long lasting results. This isn’t fear about a situation; this is a fear belief system. Which is more powerful. To these fear words, I say ‘this time might very well be different’. Anything can change; in fact it almost always does.

Fear is real. And it’s not all bad. In fact, fear serves an important purpose. Mostly, that purpose is to alert us to things that are really important to us. Frankly, if we really didn't care, we wouldn't need to have fear disguises. But fear that doesn't know its place is damaging. Damaging to the work we produce, to morale, to confidence, to futures and when fear becomes an epidemic malaise, to the culture of our societies. Learn to recognize the language of fear and banish it in favour of action, confidence, and optimism. Because action, confidence and optimism can beat fear any day. I’ve seen it.