The Art of Making Mistakes

It's never easy to own up to a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes...how many times have we heard that line in our lives, eh? But today, I am talking specifically about in the work world, where one person's mistake can start a snowball of tasks that can't get done simply because no one owned up to it.

In school, if I didn't turn in my homework on time, then only I would feel the consequences. It's like my mistake is at one end of a branch on a tree, and it would really only affect that same branch. However, when I make a mistake at work, then that branch could break off into a flurry of twigs and leaves that get tweaked by it. Most people are so understanding of mistakes - so it's our responsibility to patch it up before it branches off and affects more people.

For instance, I send out an email requesting information about a task that should have gotten done two weeks ago. Two days later, no response. So I send out a second, more stern, email. Again, no response. Finally, I write an email to them with bolded, underlined letters highlighted in yellow, virtually shaking their shoulders to get a reply.

That's what it took to get a peep out of them. The problem is, they had made a small mistake on their end and were trying to fix it without telling me about it first. By the time I knew they were just trying to fix a small problem on their side, the information was needed by three other people halfway across the world who had to postpone an important event because we had no information about what was going on.

I just wish I could have known that someone made a tiny boo-boo before I had to send three follow-up emails, you know?

I can't say that I'm perfect at owning up to my mistakes, but I realize that I'm not working for myself here - there are other people who need me to be transparent and accessible. This post is more of a rant than anything else...shove your pride to the side and please just tell me if there was a typo or if you accidentally forgot about an important task! That way, we can all work on it together!!

Rant over.

Toodle doo,

RY