Content about Oops

November 29, 2012
Talent Tips: Oops! Learning from Our Mistakes

Most organizations don’t exactly excel at learning from failure and therein lies a big lesson to be learned for dealing with mistakes. Leaders must communicate and acknowledge that if a company truly wants to be progressive and innovative, mistakes will be a natural by-product of such a strategy. We need to be more open and transparent about mistakes, share what we’ve learned, and figure out how, if possible, to prevent these in the future. We also need to encourage continual learning and development along the journey.

By Roy Saunderson, President, Recognition Management Institute

When dealing with mistakes at work, I always think of a classic IBM story that demonstrates the attitude I hope all leaders will have whenever we make those painful errors in our jobs. Imagine being a mid-level executive at IBM and making a multimillion-dollar mistake. Apparently, the executive immediately approached then-CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and tendered his resignation. Watson refused to fire him, saying he had just spent millions of dollars educating him, so why would he let him go now?