Many leaders are afraid to fail. They worry constantly about not meeting
expectations and making a mistake. But fear of failure is a deterrent to
growth. Leaders should support their cohorts and avoid being overly critical of
procedures. However, the trick of leadership is to also maintain accountability
and monitor mistakes.
Any time leaders break new ground or implement innovative technologies, they
open up new avenues for mistakes that are inevitable with change. But sticking
to a routine doesn't necessarily decrease the likelihood of errors being made.
Oftentimes, bad business habits - the mistakes made when leaders aren't paying
attention - come naturally.
If leaders want business success, they have to look clearly at their mistakes
and stop repeating them. They need to work with their employees, not against
them, to accomplish this. Even a small mistake can have big consequences, and
repeating it can cost an employee his or her job, lose customers and kill the
company brand.
"Managers should develop a culture of seeking to prevent mistakes before they
happen or before they accumulate to a big one," said Randall W. Hatcher,
president of recruiting, staffing and outsourcing services firm MAU Workforce
Solutions and author of The Birth of a New Workforce. "They can do this with
good reporting and feedback with their individual reports. They should report
key performance indicators to the whole company - business-critical things
necessary to be successful that have consequences for everybody in the
organization. In terms of feedback, companies make mistakes when they have
minimal performance development systems or performance appraisals dedicated
toward helping employees develop their skills."
Sometimes, though, a mistake is not the employee's fault, and if a leader truly
believes he or she shares some of the blame, then the leader should act to
change procedures going forward. Without accountability, leaders run into a
mental cul-de-sac where possible actions to remediate the situation raise
difficult, uncomfortable scenarios because remedies would have made a
difference much earlier.
"Anything that isn't how we expected to be [or] that feels like it will take
value from us is viewed as a threat, and the brain reacts defensively to
warning signs of danger," said Peter Demarest, author of Answering the Central
Question, adding that most people mistakenly view these situations as time to
address weaknesses. "When people try to fix their weaknesses, they
inadvertently end up using one weakness to fix another weakness, and they're
not using their strengths. Strengths are what allow leaders to perform their
best. Focusing on strengths gives an immediate benefit of better performance."
According to Demarest, a mistake is a choice or action that didn't create the
value a leader wanted it to create or took value away. To learn from such a
mistake, engage better thinking and make better choices, leaders should ask
themselves what decisions create the greatest value.
"When we see things as opportunities, we have more reasoning ability," Demarest
said. "Otherwise, we make decisions about the mistake made that might not be as
accurate as they could have been had we used our strengths to decipher how to
learn from it."
In order to prevent mistakes, leaders should have a mistake-proofing mindset.
"Poka-yoke," a Japanese term, is any mechanism in a procedure that helps a
leader avoid mistakes and prevent defects from occurring in business processes.
Constantly looking for creative ways to minimize mistakes pushes employees to
rethink the process. It sparks innovation. It's not about fundamentally
changing mindsets and behaviors; it's about mistake-proofing the personal and
interpersonal business processes that matter.
"If you fall into a habit, you're building mistrust in your organization,"
Hatcher said. "Employees see you as inflexible - you respond the same way every
time. Hatcher recommends leaders address mistakes as follows: "Alright, we made
a mistake, what is the poka-yoke we can put in place to keep this mistake from
happening in the future."
[About the Author: Ladan Nikravan is an associate editor of Chief Learning
Officer magazine.]
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