We all make mistakes. No one likes making a mistake, and we like even less speaking up and saying, “I’m sorry, but I made a mistake.” We tend to worry about what others will think of us, or we may worry about getting in trouble with our boss. Intellectually, we know that a mistake is an opportunity to learn and improve, but emotionally, and more importantly, culturally, it can still be tough to speak up.
“In healthcare, unfortunately, there's still this dynamic when something goes wrong in an operating room or in a hospital setting, people ask, ‘Who? Who messed up?’ Instead of looking at the structure of processes and systems, a lot of times, the mistake in the workplace really isn't simply the fault of one individual.”
That’s one reason that Mark Graban started his “My Favorite Mistake” podcast, for people to share their career mistakes from which they learned the most, to help ease some of our concerns about admitting mistakes.
Mark recently appeared on The Rick Dayton Show, a KDKA (Pittsburgh) radio broadcast, to discuss the power of openly and promptly speaking up when a mistake is made (or discovered), as well as the type of culture that encourages people to call out their own mistakes. Following are excerpts (edited for reading clarity) and an embedded audio player if you’d like to listen to this discussion. The full transcript also follows at the end of the post.
Mark: One of the key things is being willing to admit when you've made a mistake. This is powerful in the workplace when the owner of a company, or CEO, or your boss is willing to admit that they've made a mistake. That sets a powerful tone for everybody else.
Rick: Are we more accepting if someone admits that they made a mistake? Are we still, look at that and say, "That's your scarlet letter for a while. You screwed up"? Where are we right now?
Mark: The stories in the My Favorite Mistake podcast are redemption stories. When somebody either admits to themselves or admits to others, individuals show a lot of grace. I still think it's aspects of our society that still tends to blame and punish people for mistakes.
I do a lot of consulting in healthcare where, unfortunately, there's still this dynamic when something goes wrong in an operating room or in a hospital setting, people ask, "Who? Who messed up?" Instead of looking at the structure of processes and systems, a lot of times, the mistake in the workplace really isn't simply the fault of one individual.
Some health care organizations are learning this. They’ve changed the way they manage, accordingly. You look in the media and stories of some mishap. Unfortunately, there's still too much emphasis on “whose fault was it?” instead of asking a question like, "Why did it happen?" That type of question could be more constructive.
Rick: One of the things that (I believe it was) Thomas Edison was quoted as saying is that they asked him how frustrated that he couldn't find the right material for the filament of a lightbulb. He had gone through 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 different things. They said, "Aren't you getting frustrated?"
He said, "No. I now know those are 90 things that won't work. I'm closer to getting where I want to go." It's a mindset sometimes, isn't it?
Mark: That's an important mindset of experimenting. We're trying new things in our workplace. We're trying new things in our life with, say, to lose weight. One of the keys is we all have “oops” moments.
When we recognize those mistakes, we reflect on them, and we think about what we'd do differently, we can avoid repeating it. We can make sure we don't have the “oops...I did it again” moment.
Rick: Good stuff. Hey, hope you have a great weekend. Thank you for being here, allowing us to have a little bit of grace, and realize that, you know what, we can bounce back from our mistakes. Thank you, Mark.
It’s important to reiterate that people tend to be quite reluctant to call out their own mistakes.
Therefore, it is essential that leaders at all levels create a culture that not only makes it psychologically safe for people to call out mistakes, but encourages this behavior.
In fact, to achieve and sustain performance excellence - to be habitually excellent - systems must be designed to elicit and share mistakes in as close to real time as possible.
Further, these systems must be rigorously and periodically evaluated for effectiveness and improvement, via cycles of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA).
Would you say that your organization is a “My Favorite Mistake” culture, or is it a “Hide My Mistake” culture?
With your answer in mind, do you see a link between your culture and the performance, pace of improvement and workforce engagement?
Related Content
We share, below, some related content to help you dive a bit deeper into some of the elements needed to build and sustain a culture that encourages people to raise up their own mistakes, reflect on and learn from mistakes, and build improvements based on such learning:
Psychological Safety and Its Essential Link to Continuous Improvement
Dr. David Mayer on Habitual Excellence podcast: A Moon Shot for Zero Patient Harm
Reflection Toolbox for Continuous Improvement
Here's the Full Transcript of Mark's Interview on KDKA, "We All Make Mistakes"
Rick Dayton: People thinking about their plans for the weekend, thinking about the week that was, maybe something happened, and you now realize, going into the weekend, that didn't turn out the way you want it. You're wondering exactly what you should do about it.
Maybe you made a mistake. Maybe you didn't get something done that you should have and you need to talk to your boss about it on Monday. We got you covered. This gets you to the Pittsburg news line. Right now, it's somebody who knows all about that and the way to deal with it.
His name is Mark Graban. He's an MBA. Also, the host of a podcast called "My Favorite Mistake." It is no mistake that he's on KDKA. It's intentional. Mark, it's good to have you on the "Rick Dayton Show." How are you?
Mark Graban: I'm great, Rick. I'll try not to make any mistakes here.
Rick: I'm sure even if you do, you will gracefully figure out a way to let people know that you did and so that it's OK. Because it is possible, right? When you can ask for some leniency or some grace from people and apologize gracefully, that's still possible.
Mark: It is. One of the key things is being willing to admit when you've made a mistake. This is powerful in the workplace when the owner of a company, or CEO, or your boss is willing to admit that they've made a mistake. That sets a powerful tone for everybody else.
Rick: Tell us what your podcast is about. Give us an overview of that first before we get more into the subject matter itself. What is My Favorite Mistake all about?
Mark: My Favorite Mistake is about the mistakes that we've made in our career that was a really important learning opportunity. It formed us in a way that turns out to be positive. I've had entrepreneurs and CEOs.
I had a sitting congressman on the show last year, former athletes, people from all different lines of work who are willing to share the story about their favorite mistake, what the mistake was, how they discovered it was a mistake, and what they learned from it, so it could make them better as a person or as a professional.
Rick: One of the people you had on there was from "Shark Tank," Kevin Harrington was on with you. What did you Kevin have to say?
Mark: Sometimes, people think successful people are successful because they don't make mistakes. What happens is they learn from their mistakes. Kevin Harrington was willing to be the first guest in episode one. He told the story. He had 10 different infomercial products he was selling.
One of them had a number of quality problems, 1 out of those 10. Because of the customer complaints, it shut down his credit card processing on all 10 of his products. It completely killed his cash flow.
The lesson learned, and he shared it with the audience, was to make sure he structured things, so he would have 10 different credit card accounts. He learned from it. He made sure he didn't repeat that mistake in a way that would have been more costly down the road.
Rick: You have a degree from MIT. You're a professional speaker. You're also a consultant. As you go through these things, what have you learned about us as a society? Are we more accepting if someone admits that they made a mistake? Are we still, look at that and say, "That's your scarlet letter for a while. You screwed up"? Where are we right now?
Mark: The stories in My Favorite Mistake podcast are redemption stories where when somebody either admits to themselves or admits to others, individuals who show a lot of grace. I still think it's the society.
I do a lot of consulting in healthcare where, unfortunately, there's still this dynamic when something goes wrong in an operating room or in a hospital setting, people ask, "Who? Who messed up?" Instead of looking at the structure of processes and systems, a lot of times, the mistake in the workplace really isn't simply the fault of one individual.
Some health care organizations are learning this. They changed the way they managed accordingly. You look in the media and stories of some mishap. Unfortunately, there's still too much emphasis on whose fault was it instead of asking a question like, "Why did it happen?" That type of question could be more constructive.
Rick: "Oops, I did it again," is a famous song. That could be the subtitle of this interview with Mark Graban talking about how do you get over the fear of admitting it. What do you say to that? How do you get over it? All of us don't want to say, "You know what? I screwed up." We don't want to admit it publicly or privately, even to our boss.
Mark: You're right. It can be hard even to admit to ourselves. We can get defensive. We can feel shame. We try to remind ourselves, and I got it printed on a coffee mug, little reminders here of, "Be kind to yourself." "Nobody is perfect." "We all make mistakes."
The important thing is continuing to learn from our mistakes. I look at this. I try to remind myself this all the time. That's what we're trying to get across to the podcast listeners.
Rick: One of the things that I believe it was Thomas Edison was quoted as saying is that they asked him how frustrated that he couldn't find the right material for the filament of a lightbulb. He had gone through 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 different things. They said, "Aren't you getting frustrated?
He said, "No. I now know those are 90 things that won't work. I'm closer to getting where I want to go." It's a mindset some time, isn't it?
Mark: That's an important mindset of experimenting. We're trying new things in our workplace. We're trying new things in our life with, say, to lose weight. Back to the Britney Spears song, one of the keys is we all have oops moments.
When we recognize those mistakes, we reflect on them, and we think about what we'd do differently, we can avoid repeating it. We can make sure we don't have the Oops...I did it again.
Rick: You got it. We're going to take a call right now. This is Ray from Brookline. Ray, you're on right now with our guest, Mark Graban. What's your question for our guest?
Ray: Hey, Mark. It's mostly just a statement. Number one, I've learned more from making a mistake than I have from just doing it. You learn how not to do things forever again once you make it.
The other thing, if you make a mistake, admit it. Right off the bat, go tell somebody you screwed the thing up. I work at R&D for most of my life. A lot of times, you're under a deadline. If you made a mistake on something you're...
Rick: Mark, what do you think of that? Sometimes, the admission of that, at the same time, you're dealing with company money, you're dealing with company resources. There is that learning curve to some extent.
Mark: Mistakes are almost always unintentional. Maybe that's just the nature of it being a mistake. A couple of years ago, I was recording a podcast interview with a guest. I forgot to hit Record. I had to own up, to fess up to the guest, not make excuses, and not blame some imaginary technical mishap. I forgot to click Record.
There was some release into admitting that. The guest was incredibly gracious and said, "You know what? That was just a practice session. We'll record it again," or actually, record it for the first time. Admitting mistakes, especially in the workplace, there's a multiplier effect.
It doesn't mean we have carte blanche to make reckless decisions. When honest mistakes happen, we're better off when we admit it and figure out how to move forward in a better way.
Rick: Really good stuff. Mark, if people want to find My Favorite Mistake, where can they find your podcast?
Mark: They can go to the website, myfavoritemistakepodcast.com. They can search their favorite podcast app. Search My Favorite Mistake Podcast. Hopefully, you won't find the Sheryl Crow song which was part of the inspiration for the podcast.
Rick: Good stuff. Hey, hope you have a great weekend. Thank you for being here, allowing us to have a little bit of grace, and realize that, you know what, we can bounce back from our mistakes. Thank you, Mark.
Mark: Thanks, Rick.
Rick: Mark Graban joining us, host of My Favorite Mistake.
Written by Melissa Moore
Ms. Moore’s responsibilities center on marketing and communications. Prior to joining Value Capture, she served as a Marketing Manager at Reed Smith, a global law firm. Other career steps include: co-founding and operating a trend-setting coffeehouse; securities lawyer; and, service and equipment sales.
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