What We Can Learn from Our Worst Mistakes
None of us are perfect. We make mistakes—and sometimes they’re big mistakes. What comes next can mean the difference between success and endlessly spinning our wheels.
It’s easy to say you’re sorry or to make amends when you accidentally bump into somebody or misinterpret something that someone said. But what about the big mistakes? Some larger companies can make mistakes that have significant consequences—like spilling thousands of barrels of oil into the ocean, making thousands of faulty pieces of furniture, or accidentally selling cars with defective seat belts. These errors are extremely difficult to put right and can harm others if company leaders don’t take responsibility. These leaders face a moral dilemma: Do they alert customers and fix the issue, dealing with the extra costs and embarrassment, or do they do nothing, hoping to avoid any negative affect to their profits? The answer should always be to do what is best for customers. The same is true in small business. We should always take the initiative to recall any piece of our work that isn’t up to standard.
Here are a few tips for staying focused on what’s really important:
1. Set core values early.
First, what are core values? They are values you believe in and try to live by: honesty, trustworthiness, fairness. You don’t want to get caught questioning what you believe in when you’re in the middle of a crisis. Set your values. Write them down. Believe them. Trust that if you follow them, your business will thrive. Who you are is what your company will stand for.
2. Don’t be afraid to repent.
Don’t be afraid to do this in both a spiritual sense and a physical sense. The original meaning of repent is “to change.” So when you have made a mistake with a customer, take responsibility, make it right, and figure out how to change your process so you don’t do it again. There was a cabinetmaker who found that a set of his cabinets were slightly too big for the customer. Rather than hiding the mistake by carving a piece of the cabinet away to make it fit, he rebuilt the cabinets—but not until he double-checked the saw gauges and found an error in the way they were set up. He not only made one customer happy but also saved himself a lot of future headaches.
3. Listen even when you are not wrong.
It takes a lot of patience to hear out complaints. Rather than starting the blame game, listen carefully and take notes. Establish an environment where employees trust you enough to voice their concerns. Then patiently review responsibilities with them so that everyone understands what he or she is accountable for. Remember, it’s the people you should care about the most.
Big mistakes lead to big solutions. Many products are safer today because companies took responsibility for early mistakes in design or production and made changes. These changes sometimes came at great cost in the short run, but the investment paid off in the long run. Remember, God wants us to improve and grow. Sometimes it’s painful to accept responsibility and make things right, but it does pay off spiritually as well as temporally.