Parenting lessons
I had something happen in the living room this week that almost immediately made me think of the workplace.
You know all of the jokes that start with, "There are only two kinds of people in the world. Those who are
It wouldn't be fair and there's no need to go into the details of the matter, but here's one of the thoughts that came out of it.
In some ways, I think some of us (and even more of us, some of the time) think there are two kinds of people in the world - those who don't make mistakes and those who do. Clearly, that perception is wrong because we all make mistakes. And if you aren't making any mistakes you aren't taking enough chances or making enough tough decisions. Even though the world isn't as simple as being made up of two of anything - I think a better and more realistic way to look at this is:
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who make mistakes and learn from them (implying that the mistake is also not repeated) and those who make mistakes and don't learn from them, cover them up, and shrivel when confronted with future opportunities to make mistakes.
The whole episode at home reminds me that we all need some percentage of our work (and life) portfolio that helps us embrace the cycle of try, fail, learn, try again, succeed. It also reminded me that even if we fail outside of the portfolio where we can safely embrace this cycle - we need to apply the same courage when the stakes are higher. Admit the mistake, fix it, take the time to make changes to prevent it from happening again, and move on.
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
OK, so taking this lesson to IT, don't we need t o discuss and yes, "allow" failure - a possible by product of mistakes. It's a cultural and a leadership thing, and I've added to the ITLP wiki discussion topic list. Thanks for this post. BTW - I think the application of your thoughts is much more difficult at home, especially with teenagers(!)
Absolutely, I think it's about creating places where failure can happen without stopping the show AND not just looking backwards on failure but forwards.
I think the second group comes from a climate of fear-- "Make it work or you're fired!!". It leads to the endless cycle of coverup -- wash, rinse, repeat. SO much energy gets tied up into the coverup there's no time left to learn from what went wrong.
The cultural shift away from the culture of fear takes a while. As a society we do need to forgive more and not pass judgement on the commission of a mistake. Zero tolerance and three strikes have no place.