We found a great article last week about Brogan & Partners’ Mistake of the Month Award.
And surprise! (or maybe not) – in the story is evidence of every element of mistake management needed to go from ignoring or hiding mistakes to celebrating them – boosting morale & productivity in the process.
- accept mistakes as part of “the plan”
- accept responsibility
- fix them quickly
- learn from them
- design or re-design systems to avoid recurrence
- nurture a culture that supports and even celebrates all of the above
(list from article entitled: Celebrating Mistakes)
The title of the Inc.com article: Everyone goofs from time to time. Here’s how one firm learns from its errors.
In it, author, Jennifer Gill states that CEO, Marcie Brogan started the award fourteen years ago to honor “employees who confess their blunders to the rest of the staff.”
Here’s a snippet from the article:
“Sharing a mistake is just as valuable as sharing a best practice,” Brogan says. “Everyone learns from it.” It wasn’t easy getting the first guilty parties to stand up. At first, Brogan “primed the pumps,” cajoling senior staffers to come clean during the agency’s monthly meeting. Now, it’s not unusual for two or three employees to fess up. The 60-person staff votes on the best mistake, with the winner snagging $50.
By the way – the article was written in 2005. I was curious to know if they still had the award.
On Friday, Jim Tobin who currently works there said, “We sure do. The philosophy is that one mistake is fine. Making the same mistake twice is not.”
I hope you’ll read the entire article which includes some example blunders and the resulting discoveries.
copyright 2009 – Jan Bolick, Business Class Inc
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