How should any business owner or leader react?
This article caught my eye recently:
How 6 designers handle employee mistakes
Hopefully there are no stories about yelling, screaming, and firings!
The first designer, Victoria McKenney, could have been reading straight from my book! 🙂
“I truly believe that every mistake is an opportunity for learning, so it is important to first review what went wrong, and if there is a way to make sure this mistake doesn’t happen again, we run through what we can change moving forward.”
Victoria continued by saying she wouldn’t punish an employee financially. She’s also right to take time to talk with the person about the impact the mistake had on the business. There’s no reason to dance around that in the name of being nice. It’s better to be constructive.
Cheryl Luckett said, in part:
“It’s important to cultivate a workplace environment where employees feel that it’s OK to make a mistake, or to have an idea or a suggestion that fails. It’s often the mistakes, missteps and failures that help us learn and grow.”
She emphasized the need to learn from mistakes — and reminds us that we’re all human and we all make mistakes.
Martin Goddard talked about blame being “the easy path,” but he chooses the more constructive one:
‘How can we move forward while learning for the next time?’
I also appreciated what Jennifer Vertutto had to add, in part:
“Employees are encouraged to share mistakes promptly, allowing us to address issues swiftly and collaboratively. Instead of placing blame, we focus on understanding the root cause of the mistake.”
If leaders encourage people to speak up and share mistakes… but then punish them, employees will learn to keep quiet. And then we can’t learn and improve.
Rachael Grochowski takes responsibility for everything that happens in her business, which is a winning leadership trait:
“As principal, every mistake comes back to me.”
Check out the entire article to read more of their fantastic thoughts on this.
Check out this episode of “My Favorite Mistake” with interior design business owner Shirley Novack as she discusses mistakes she’s made and mistakes her employees make:
