Mistakes… we all make them (citation needed), but not many of us are comfortable talking about them (or even sometimes acknowledging they happen).  I find this lack of comfort to be a very interesting cultural outcome, since discouraging talking about mistakes means we’ll be making more.  Even worse, it means the ones that do occur will end up hurting us more.

I recently had a great discussion with a colleague about how we can get more comfortable sharing mistakes (this is a fascinating topic that I’ll touch on in another post).  In essence they were asking how we can go from a state of being fearful of owning mistakes and exposing ourselves to retribution to a state of feeling OK pointing out when I screw up.  Their fear was centered around what would happen at our next performance review since we’d essentially be feeding our managers ammo on where we failed.  While I completely understand this mindset (it’s one I imagine many of us have experienced… the manager who sees a mistake as something to hammer down on vs. an opportunity to improve), it’s one that I do not ascribe to for a few reasons.

Everyone makes mistakes

It’s a simple fact of our reality that everyone makes a mistake at some point (or several…).  Trying to ignore this fact is essentially lying to ourselves… after all, we know that at SOME point we’ll make a mistake... and that our boss will make a mistake… and that everyone else will too.  Since we know it’s going to happen, we don’t gain anything by hiding it.  The best possible outcome in that scenario is no one finds out… worst case is someone does; in this case instead of asking how they can help fix it they’ll ask why you hid it.

You could also think of it this way - your manager knows at some point you’ll make a mistake. By exposing them, instead of letting your manager find them, you show that you can be trusted, that you recognize when you need help.  This not only helps strengthen the relationship with your manager (see the third point), but also gets you in control of the conversation.  Proactively bringing it up lets you frame the discussion as a “I made a mistake and want to avoid doing it again” instead of a “You really screwed up”.

Owning our mistakes gives us strength

Hear me out on this one.

The default assumption in many places is that individuals will not call out their own mistakes (despite everyone knowing mistakes are made).  After all, it REALLY doesn’t feel good to stand up and say “I made a mistake”.  Our ego (that voice inside that pumps us up/tells us how awesome we are/etc) is threatened by this, so we avoid that internal pain by not saying anything.  This easy way out protects us in the short term, but can come back to bite us when the mistake is caught later.

Actively calling out our mistakes demonstrates to others that we’re aware of where we need help and where we can grow.  It tells others that we’re human too, and that even us as the XYZ expert can stumble.  By bringing your mistake into the open you not only make it easier to get help, you also make it easier for others to share their mistakes.  This not only enables your growth by allowing others to help you improve, but strengthens the entire team by sharing those lessons.

Owning our mistakes builds relationships

One of the biggest advantages in admitting to our mistakes is the boost it gives our various relationships.  As noted above, they also make mistakes, so knowing you’re comfortable sharing yours will make them feel better about working with you.

Being proactive and calling out when we’ve made a mistake lets our partners know we’re serious about helping them… after all, we could have just let is slide.  Now this isn’t to say I just call up someone and say “Hey, I crashed the server, good luck”.  Instead I’ll first figure out how to undo (or at least mitigate) the damage.  This further helps my credibility as not only am I proactively alerting them to issues, I’m proactively fixing tem.  This turns what could be a large escalation (imagine a situation where you don’t tell them about the mistake and they find out on their own) into a positive experience.

Not Easy

I’m not saying any of this is easy… indeed, it can be very challenging to stand up and say “hey, I screwed something up”.  The benefits, however, outweigh that short-term discomfort.  The good news, though, is that the more we practice this skill, the more we embrace being temporarily uncomfortable, the easier it gets.