So I’m up reading and catching up on some notes when I came across this tidbit, well its more than just a tidbit, as I know everyone from one moment or another has made a mistake at some point in their lives. However, can you learn from those mistakes or better yet, are you willing to let yourself learn from those mistakes or are you going to pretend it never happened.
These four points shared below are critical in learning from your mistakes, what say you?
“M istakes happen in business
all the time, but most people
have a powerful motivation
to try to cover up their errors as much
as possible. However, not recognizing
and learning from failures might be the
most dangerous failure of all because
it means the problem is likely to occur
again. This means that, even though
it might be hard to admit it, doing
the right thing often means admitting
when you’ve done the wrong thing.
Most people would say that we have
an ethical obligation to learn from
mistakes, but how can we do that?
In a recent special issue in Harvard
Business Review on failures, experts
argued that learning from mistakes
relies on several strategies, which
include:
1. Heed pressure. High pressure often
provokes faulty thinking. BP
faced enormous pressure from
cost overruns—roughly $1 million
a day—in its deepwater oil explorations.
This led its managers to
miss warning signs that led to the
catastrophic explosion in the Gulf
of Mexico in 2010. Similar time
and cost pressures precipitated the
ill-fated Challenger and Columbia
space shuttle launches. In highpressure
situations, ask yourself,
“If I had more time and resources,
would I make the same decision?”
2. Recognize that failure is not always
bad. Most of us would agree
that we have learned more in life
from our mistakes than from our successes.
So, we need to realize that
while we don’t want to fail, it does
have a hidden gift if we’re willing to
receive—a chance to learn something
important. Eli Lilly holds “failure
parties” to honor drug trials and experiments
that fail to achieve the desired
results. The rationale for these
parties is to recognize that when little
is ventured, little is lost, but little is
gained too. Procter & Gamble CEO
A. G. Lafley argues that very high
success rates show incremental
innovation—but what he wants are
game changers. He has celebrated
P&G’s 11 most expensive product
failures, focusing on what the company
learned from each. So don’t be
afraid to admit mistakes—and ask
“What can I learn” from each.
3. Understand and address the root
cause. When Apple introduced the
iPhone 4 in 2010, many customers
complained about dropped calls.
Apple first responded by suggesting
the problem lay in the way customers
held the phones, suggested
they “avoid gripping [the phone] in
the lower left corner.” Steve Jobs
called the problem a “non-issue.”
Only later did Apple address the
root cause of the problem—and fix
it. When you make an error, try to
understand what caused it.
4. Reward owning up. If you make a
mistake, be willing to speak up and
admit it. Too often we dig ourselves
deeper into a hole by being defensive
about mistakes. That also
keeps us from learning from our
failures. If we all make mistakes,
what are we being so defensive
about?
Given the complexity of human behavior,
we’ll never avoid making mistakes
entirely. Indeed, a healthy appreciation
for how mistake-prone we are is one
of the points of this chapter (and of
Chapter 6 ). But we can do a better job
of admitting our mistakes and learning
from them when they occur.”
Sources: A. C. Edmondson, “Strategies
for Learning from Failure,” Harvard Business
Review 89, no. 4 (2011), pp. 48–55;
R. G. Mcgrath, “Failing by Design,”
Harvard Business Review 89, no. 4 (2011),
pp. 76–83; C. H. Tinsley, R. L. Dillon, and
P. M. Madsen, “How to Avoid Catastrophe,”
Harvard Business Review 89, no. 4 (2011),
pp. 90–97.
An Ethical Choice
Can You Learn from Failure?
outcomes)
“A man must be BIG enough to ADMIT his mistakes,
SMART enough to PROFIT from them,
and STRONG enough to CORRECT them”
– John C. Maxwell
“Everyday is a Fresh Start … Embrace it” – Audria
Empower & Inspire to Succeed 
Written
on January 31, 2014