adminShelter Chieza : Change Management
It’s never easy to own up to a mistake especially if it’s a costly one. Last week, I was amazed by the humility that was shown by the Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens after they offered to resign over their failure to track an Islamic State militant expelled by Turkey last year who blew himself up at Brussels airport on Tuesday last week.
For the average man, it takes a lot of personal introspection to handle mistakes gracefully and take responsibility for the error.
It’s never easy to own up to a mistake especially if it’s a costly one. Most organisations have drawn up plans to react in times of crisis.
Managers face situations on a day to day basis that are extremely volatile. You can be managing a portfolio that has performed really badly and you are aware that this position has a potential of affecting all the other operations of the business.
It’s never easy to break the news to the relevant stakeholders. The most common reaction would be procrastination to offering information.
Human error tends to go higher given the amount of data that has to be processed on a day to day basis.
We make decisions on the type of investments our companies can settle for. In some cases we can make good predictions but in some, we make terrible ones that cost us heavily.
In those instances, managers are the ones that have to face the board or directors and inform them of the misjudgement.
Manufacturing set-ups have set up acceptable margin of error, which is an acknowledgement that human beings do make errors.
Generally, researchers use an acceptable margin of error of between 4 to 8 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
Why is it so hard for most of us to own up to our shortcomings? I have also observed that in our local settings the male species find it even much harder to admit it when they are wrong or where they have failed.
I have often taught that people will judge you by the way you communicate in a crisis. In this case, the war of words come into play, you need to choose your words carefully, tone and even body language very carefully.
It is always good to be direct, if you don’t break the bad news, you may even worsen the situation.
Only recently, information filtered that Toyota was recalling 6,5 million cars over faulty steering wheels and seats.
Since 2012 Toyota has recalled 18,7 million vehicles from the 20 million that they have sold. Such statistics do not augur well for a well-known business and market leader such as Toyota
Fear is what grips many from owning up to their mistakes and failure, in business set-ups the fear of appearing incompetent to superiors is mostly prevalent.
Owning up to one’s mistake or failure is not necessarily a bad move as it has in some instances earned some individuals promotions and elevations to other positions of authority.
I have met people that would say “It was an oversight” instead of “I made an oversight” because they cannot just bring themselves to admit responsibility for their action and feel that it’s best to be ambiguous.
At times, it’s not the individuals that are at fault, it’s the culture of intolerance to mistakes that would have been embedded within the system.
A good idea would be to develop a culture where people feel comfortable to admit to their mistakes without fear of reprisals.
It’s easier to confess a mistake done if your boss has occasions where he sends memos owning up to his own mistakes.
I have learnt that in some cases when you are honest to your clients about why their deliveries were late such clients are more loyal to your company and feel compelled to stick with it than one that tries to hide the truth.
Of course this has not always worked and we have lost a number of them in such instance. We have had to soldier on though knowing that we had done our best to avert the crisis. Deflecting and hiding challenges are never the best solution.
Apologies and confessions are not always easy to do, they take a lot of guts. Have sessions at your workplace to discuss how you may help each other.
The other reason why we find it difficult to own up to our failures and mistakes is due to our ego.
Psychologists believe that all humans are essentially ego-driven creatures. We see this develop from an early age.
Our in-born human nature tends to thrive in laying blame on others, we have to fight that urge to blame others for things that we are responsible for.
It starts at a young age, I see it even in my youngest daughter when she does something and I ask her who is responsible, her immediate answer is almost always “it was not me.”
This habit may grow with you to the extent that you blame your failure in the exam on the lecturer that hates you or failure to establish a successful business due to the current economic situation even when the economy was never a factor.
When our behaviour threatens our self-concept, our ego automatically goes into hyper-defence mode, circles the wagons, and begins issuing self-justifications designed to protect itself.
So let’s not always be ultra-defensive it’s good to own up to our mistakes and failures from time to time.
Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of Management Experience .She can be contacted at [email protected]
Online Reporter