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How To Make Better Mistakes
53 Plays3 months ago
Mark Graban is an author, speaker, and podcast host specialising in lean management and healthcare improvement. He wrote "The Mistakes That Make Us" and hosts the podcast "My Favourite Mistake." Mark is known for his insights on learning from mistakes and improving organisational processes.
Themes Covered:
- Innovation and Mistakes: Why embracing small mistakes can lead to big breakthroughs.
- Healthcare Errors: The importance of systems and checklists.
- Creating a Safe Space: How this fits with psychological safety
- Leading Through Mistakes: Tips for leaders on how to encourage better mistake making
Connect with Mark here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgraban/
Listen to Mark's podcast, My Favorite Mistake.
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Transcript
The Problem with Punishing Mistakes
00:00:04
Speaker
Punishing a mistake is rarely helpful. Mistakes are unintentional by definition. So I think we can rethink what's often an assumption of like, well, you have to punish people. Well, that's a choice. I'd rather focus on learning and improvement. Even things that I've thought were a relatively major career mistake ended up having some silver line.
Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to the show. I'm Corinne Hines and this is the Visible Leader podcast. I take a practical approach to leadership, unpacking the art and science of leading effectively. And together with my guests, I explore topics like how to unlock meeting gridlock and is it even possible? And how can you get performance without the need for the dreaded appraisal?
00:01:07
Speaker
This week, I chatted with Mark Graben, who is a hero in the world of mistake making. He is a lean consultant, a speaker, and the author of The Mistakes That Make Us, Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. And he's the host of a podcast, My Favorite Mistake.
00:01:29
Speaker
And it occurred to me as I was prepping for this show that one of my biggest fears is that my daughter is going to spill something on our cream 100% wool carpet. And instead of telling me straight away, she's going to try and fix it so she doesn't have to own up to it. So with this trend towards learning from our mistakes and positively embracing failure, what does that look like in practice?
00:01:56
Speaker
How should we respond when mistakes lead to serious consequences?
Parental Concerns About Mistakes
00:02:01
Speaker
And can I get any parenting tips? This is where I was going with today's conversation. And you know, maybe I didn't get the parenting tips, but I definitely got loads of interesting insights for why mistakes happen in the first place and what you can do in response. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
00:02:27
Speaker
Welcome to this episode, Mark.
Career Mistakes and Lessons Learned
00:02:30
Speaker
Corin, thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. Given that we are talking about the subject of mistakes, what's the biggest mistake you've made personally and what did you learn from it? A couple of times in my career, I've made pretty big mistakes in accepting a job that turned out to not be what I expected.
00:02:53
Speaker
I mean, neither of them was really a life altering mistake in a truly horrible way, but it, it led to stress. It led to times where I was questioning my own abilities as opposed to questioning the situation I was in early. Maybe I was questioning my decision making.
00:03:17
Speaker
abilities. Um, yeah, I mean, I think in terms of a biggest mistake, I mean, I, I'd like to use the framing of a favorite mistake on my podcast name. I feel like I want to start the whole podcast again and ask you your favorite mistake. I've got that. I really let that slip.
00:03:39
Speaker
Well, no, I mean, it's a, it's a different question. It's an interesting question to say, what's your biggest mistake? You know, sometimes people that I've interviewed or talked to have had a really huge major mistake where a business failed. Yeah. I've talked to a couple of people who committed financial crimes and went to prison. Like those are really huge mistakes, right?
Positive Outcomes from Mistakes
00:04:02
Speaker
My, you know, none of my mistakes, thankfully are that big, but you know, I've had lessons learned about, you know, my first job out of college.
00:04:09
Speaker
I took a job at General Motors, which I wasn't really keen to do, considering their reputation in the mid-90s. I didn't think it would be a great place to work. I was given this pitch about one factory that was supposed to be different, and that sounded great. And it's a lesson learned, and I should have gone and actually visited that factory before accepting the job. I was in a different state.
00:04:34
Speaker
for college, I was returning back to my home state of Michigan. And parts of that job were miserable for the first year, but I'm glad I stuck with it because the second year brought a new plant manager, a new management philosophy, and ended up being very educational, inspiring. And in hindsight, I'd say, well, I learned a lot of what not to do.
00:04:57
Speaker
And then I learned some lessons about how to help change in organizations. So even things that I've thought were a relatively major career mistake ended up having some silver lining.
Overcoming Self-Doubt After Mistakes
00:05:10
Speaker
So that's the positive of it. I think those mistakes that hit your self-esteem and your self-confidence and get you doubting yourself, they're quite tricky, aren't they, to get through, to get past.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, I think trying to remember, or I'm trying to practice and be better at this myself before we talk about managing others, we can talk about managing. Yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
of trying to be more kind to myself. And it's one thing to reflect on a mistake and try to learn from it. You know, there was one time, this is probably at least a decade ago, I forgot to click record. I've been podcasting a long time and I forgot to click record. That was embarrassing. That's a mistake I've managed not to repeat.
00:05:56
Speaker
That's a mistake I owned up to and I told the truth to the person who was the guest. I didn't pretend like there was a technical problem. I said, you know, I forgot to hit record and that person couldn't have been any more kind and gracious. I remember the response was quite literally something like, well,
00:06:18
Speaker
We'll call that a practice session and let's do it again and i'll be better that time more like i mean that i'm upset at me for wasting their time and i think there was a great lesson there showing graciousness i try to do the same if somebody makes a mistake that affects me. Well that is a nice way to intro mistakes we make and have to be kind to ourselves.
00:06:40
Speaker
It seems to be really on trend mistake making. I feel like in recent years, it's very trendy to really embrace mistake making.
Types of Mistakes and Learning from Them
00:06:50
Speaker
What kind of mistakes are we looking to be throwing our arms around and which are really not in that same category?
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think there's two broad categories. I mean, I think the mistakes that we need to most embrace and expect and welcome or even celebrate is one we're learning or doing something new.
00:07:19
Speaker
I think if we're learning something as an individual, as a team, as an organization, if we're trying to improve, if we're attempting to be innovative with new products or new services or a new podcast or what have you, we think of what's the worst that can happen? I mean, we could try something new and innovative that fails.
00:07:41
Speaker
and destroys a company. The way to mitigate that is to acknowledge and embrace and be candid about mistakes when they're really small. This is where I think a lot of modern entrepreneurship is about experiments and running experiments and iterating.
00:07:58
Speaker
and finding the right answer over time instead of knowing the right answer up front. I think small mistakes turn into big failures and big catastrophes when people get stubborn, when they don't want to admit that their hypothesis might be
00:08:15
Speaker
a little bit incorrect. So, I mean, I think there's times where we have to expect it, embrace it, celebrate it so that we can learn and fail forward, if you will, instead of fail in a huge catastrophic way. But then there's, I think, a second category of mistakes that we would treat and view differently. And I would call those process mistakes.
00:08:37
Speaker
So you think in healthcare, this is a global problem, so I don't mean to be picking on England here, but I saw a headline recently in news alerts that I get of a hospital in England that had committed what you call three wrong side procedures in the course of like three months.
00:08:57
Speaker
So if it was like a hernia on the left side, I don't know what the exact procedures were. I don't remember or know if that was disclosed. But if it was supposed to be an incision on the left side, it was mistakenly made on the right side or a lesion on someone's forehead. Instead, they cut on somebody's neck.
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, they get the patients mixed up, but there's miscommunications or a problem with the records. You know, I would say mistakes like that are ones we definitely need and want to prevent. You know, giving the wrong medication to a patient, which would happen, happens in American hospitals. I mean, again, these are global problems. Those are mistakes that we really want to prevent through good process, good communication, good systems, a culture
00:09:40
Speaker
of psychological safety where people can speak up and ask questions if they're unsure and they don't get scolded for not knowing. Mistake proofing through different technologies or checklists or different methods. I would never say celebrate a medication mistake.
00:09:59
Speaker
But I think as with an innovation mistake, we want to need to learn from it, right? So we need to react in a way that's constructive and I'm a bit radical where I think, you know, punishing a mistake is rarely helpful.
00:10:14
Speaker
especially looking ahead and trying to learn and prevent that type of mistake from happening again. So those are the two main broad categories. Are we doing something brand new? Are we being innovative or are we doing something that's fairly routine that we should know how to prevent?
00:10:31
Speaker
So we're looking at attitudes towards mistake making and the bundles that you can put these mistakes into. And I'm interested in how a leader manages their people and their teams in relation to mistake making. What are some common pitfalls that leaders might fall into when they are looking at mistakes from
00:10:57
Speaker
the immediate thing happening to further down the line or before it's happened?
Leadership Pitfalls and Constructive Responses
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's many pitfalls. One is, I think, a common pitfall before a mistake happens when leaders think, well, we want to prevent certain mistakes, so we're going to warn people to be careful.
00:11:18
Speaker
and remind them, well, don't make that mistake. I wrote a blog post recently that was only, I think it was a bit tongue in cheek. I asked ChatGPT to create an image of an operating room that had a big giant sign that said, caution, don't operate on the wrong side. It seems silly and I've never seen, I wouldn't expect an operating room to post a large sign like that because I wouldn't expect that sign to be effective.
00:11:46
Speaker
But that's often the mindset though in an organization. It's like, well, we told people to be careful. We, I've seen a lot of other settings where leaders post signs that say things like, please remember, don't forget, be careful, caution. Like to me, signs like that are an indication that there's a problem that hasn't really been solved. Like sometimes people think that sign or the caution or the reminder is a solution. It's, it's not covered ourselves.
00:12:15
Speaker
I mean, I am doing this with my teenager. I know I noticed when I'm doing it. It's like saying careful or yeah, or you know, but you're just that attitude of like, just the warning, you know, they're kind of like the be careful warning.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, you think of, I mean, I love examples of, of mistake proofing, um, that we might interact with on a daily basis. So you think of, um, our car. And, uh, back in the day, there was, there was a real issue with people thinking their foot was on the brake, but it was really on the accelerator.
00:12:50
Speaker
And then they shift into gear and the vehicle smashes into somebody or into another car, into a wall. And, you know, it would be easy to blame the driver. Well, you know, people learned automakers and regulators in different countries have built in mistake proofing, where if your foot is not on the brake, you literally cannot shift out of park. Like to me, that's an example of mistake proofing instead of putting a sticker on the windshield that says, Hey, remember to put your foot on the brake.
00:13:19
Speaker
We can avoid that pitfall of just telling people to be careful. But then I think another pitfall that's really common when a mistake occurs is for a leader to get angry, to think first about punishment. It might be a warning of, well, if you ever make that mistake again, you're fired, or they'll fire the employee. And I've heard leaders say,
00:13:44
Speaker
Things like, well, if I don't punish people, that gives them permission to make more mistakes. And like, I don't think that's really how it works. Like mistakes are unintentional by definition. So when we punish or threaten punishment, I think what that drives people to do to protect themselves is to hide mistakes.
00:14:03
Speaker
Well, then we can't learn from the mistake as a team. It makes it harder to try to prevent that mistake from occurring again in constructive ways, like mistake proofing instead of just reminding people. And I have heard an argument. People say, well, like, well, you don't want to fire someone who's made a mistake because now that they know about it, they're less likely to make the mistake again.
00:14:25
Speaker
I don't know if that's really true, but I mean, I think we can rethink like what's often an assumption of like, well, you have to punish people. I'm like, well, that's a choice. I'd rather focus on learning and improvement. So the different.
00:14:41
Speaker
Buckets of mistakes, we've got the like learning iteratively and experimenting and actually embracing that there might be one which is sloppiness and repeated mistakes of process things. So when you think about a manager's response to those two things, how may they look different? I think the response.
00:15:01
Speaker
should be more similar than different. I mean, I think for one is showing some empathy instead of anger. We've hired good people and I believe strongly people want to do quality work. They want to be successful.
00:15:20
Speaker
you know, whether it's a process mistake or an innovation mistake, you know, first we can be a little bit caring and acknowledge that the person who's made the mistake or been involved in the mistake or the people that they feel bad. They may need a little time to recover emotionally. That could be minutes or hours or maybe overnight before we can get in the constructive problem solving mode. And I think we have to care about the person.
00:15:46
Speaker
and then look into the process. I admire leaders, and I love interviewing people and sharing stories where they react in a kind and constructive way. We don't want to be just nice. I think this is a different pitfall. So if people might agree that punishment is counterproductive, yelling and getting angry and punishing and firing people, it might feel good. That's an emotional response. But leaders might agree, OK, that's not ideal.
00:16:15
Speaker
But then there's the pitfall of being nice where leaders say things like, well, Corin, I know you didn't mean to do it. Don't feel bad. It's okay. If that's the end of the discussion, that's really no more constructive. It's, it's nice, but is it better for the business? So I would focus more on being kind.
00:16:37
Speaker
where I think you can be empathetic, you can be a little consoling, but then the next steps would be to discuss the reality of the situation. You'd say, well, if somebody made a mistake that angered a client and now we've lost that client, I think you can acknowledge that reality and say, look, this had a serious impact. It was human error. Let's challenge ourselves now to put measures in place to protect ourselves.
00:17:07
Speaker
We're all humans, so we get fatigued, distracted. We're having a bad day. We need to focus on learning and improving. That might be easier to do when it's an innovation mistake of like, well, we tried that LinkedIn campaign for the first time. And after a week we learned we hadn't really targeted our audience that well. And so we wasted some money. Like you could bounce back from that and learn from it and improve.
00:17:35
Speaker
I think we should react in a similar constructive way, even when it's a quote unquote preventable mistake.
Introducing 'Leading Smarter' Program
00:17:44
Speaker
Hello, it's Corinne here. I wanted to tell you about something I've been working on recently that could help you get better results with key leaders in your team.
00:17:54
Speaker
Perhaps they've been in post a while, or they're one of your rising stars who you've promoted because they were great at the job they did before, but now they're not really getting the results you expected. Whatever the story, the knock on effect is you're getting dragged into decision making that really shouldn't involve you. And you're frustrated because you've probably said something already, but nothing is changing.
00:18:19
Speaker
If this sounds familiar, then my leading smarter program is for you. I run individual sessions for you both where I will create a roadmap to success. We'll look at where they are now, where they really need to be, and what's actually holding them back. And then, and I think this is where the magic happens, I bring you together and facilitate a joint session where we get really clear on what success needs to look like and how you're going to measure it.
00:18:48
Speaker
you'll both be clearer by the end. They'll be happier and more engaged, and you'll be able to put your efforts into the parts of the business that really need you, like growth planning or visiting key clients. If this sounds like something you need, I'm offering a free 30-minute discovery session where we discuss your specific situation and find out how the Leading Smarter program can help you get better results.
00:19:17
Speaker
Find me on LinkedIn, search for Corinne Hines. Also, the link will be in the show notes and I look forward to speaking to you then.
00:19:30
Speaker
Having read Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed, and Check This Manifesto, so interesting looking at the different industries, the airline industry and the health industry, and that was obviously your thing, looking into those different reactions to it. What can we learn from that beyond what we've just talked about, about reactions or culture maybe? Maybe it's about pulling back a bit and looking at the different culture.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, I'm more familiar with The Checklist Manifesto. It's written by a surgeon, Dr. Atul Gawande. It's an amazing book. It looks at the use of checklists in aviation and other settings where safety and reliability and quality are so critical. One thing that always sticks out to me is Dr. Gawande talked about how the disciplined use of checklists prevents a really good surgeon from having one really bad day.
00:20:27
Speaker
that might affect the rest of their career. We're protecting ourselves and others from human error instead of saying, hey, be superhuman. Everybody has bad days. You're not feeling well, different reasons why people might struggle on a given day. But I think when it comes back to culture, one of the things that really helps in terms of preventing mistakes or learning from them quickly
00:20:55
Speaker
and preventing a small mistake from being repeated or becoming a large mistake is a culture of openness and candor. And this is often described as a culture of psychological safety, where I think in a nutshell, the level of psychological safety, it's a spectrum, it's not safe or unsafe. There's degrees of psychological safety, but it's a question of how safe do you feel speaking candidly in the workplace? And that can include things like
00:21:24
Speaker
asking questions, asking for clarifications about how to do your job. I've seen mistakes happen in healthcare where people felt pressured, like, oh, well, if I ask a question about how to do my job, I kind of get yelled at for not knowing. Well, say, well, that could have been a training problem. And of course you would rather have someone ask a question than make a bad assumption that leads to a mistake. But, you know, we want to feel safe.
00:21:49
Speaker
speaking up about questions, mistakes, concerns, problems, new ideas. You know, when people get rewarded for speaking up, they're going to speak up more and we're going to, I think both identify risks and prevent mistakes.
00:22:06
Speaker
in an effective way and we're going to learn from mistakes that do occur. So if you look at the work of Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark and others who have written about psychological safety, that really is a key foundation.
Understanding Psychological Safety
00:22:19
Speaker
What do you think we're getting wrong with psychological safety? I feel like it's a term that is used quite a lot and not necessarily always with the same intent behind it. What have you seen?
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's pitfalls or misunderstandings. Amy Edmondson spends a lot of time writing and talking about what psychological safety is not. I mean, again, psychological safety means I feel safe speaking up candidly and I'm not going to get punished for it.
00:22:50
Speaker
I think people misunderstand psychological safety to mean, oh, well, that means people can get away with anything and there's never any accountability. Well, no, it doesn't mean that or, and we're all friends and we're all friends and I never want you to feel stressed or that that's, that's not.
00:23:07
Speaker
what it is. Um, I've, I've also seen people misunderstand and use the phrase psychological safety to try to shut down disagreement or debate. That's the opposite of what we want. So let's say, you know, I say something and then, you know, you disagreeing with me, Corin, that's not punishing me. That's adults having a disagreement around ideas. And if we're being respectful,
00:23:30
Speaker
we should be able to have that debate and discussion openly and respectfully. But if I were to start feeling upset that you're disagreeing with me, it would be inappropriate to say, well, Corinne, you need to think about my psychological safety. I need you to just stop arguing with me. That would be...
00:23:47
Speaker
a misunderstanding of psychological safety. So I should feel safe sharing my opinion. You should feel safe disagreeing. Right. So psychological safety doesn't mean this magical utopia where we all magically get along. If anything, it means more debate. And instead of a leader saying, hey, I'm the boss, my way goes and shutting down discussion there. There might be more open discussion. It doesn't turn the workplace into a democracy, but everyone's had their opportunity to state their case.
00:24:17
Speaker
And we would want to make better ideas or better decisions. The better idea should win in a discussion like that. So again, like psychological safety means I have my right to speak up. You have your right to speak up. You know, at some point somebody might have to make a decision.
00:24:34
Speaker
We might not all agree, but at least we would know we were heard. And, you know, I think people feel bad when they are pressured into kind of stifling what they really wanted to say or share. I think that leads to a lot of problems where people start getting discouraged and they quit and leave the organization.
00:24:54
Speaker
I think psychological safety is proven to have a lot of benefits. It's not about nicey-nice. It's really about performance and keeping people engaged and happy in the workplace, making better decisions, preventing huge failures. There's so much research that shows teams with higher levels of psychological safety
00:25:12
Speaker
perform better, end of story. Like it really is good business to lead in ways that encourage psychological safety. Now, one other pitfall, since you asked the pitfall is telling people you should feel safe now. Oh, yeah. That this is a safe team, that this is a safe space. What you need to do is encourage people to speak up candidly and then reward them for doing so. People decide how safe they feel. They can't be told that they should feel safe.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah, good point.
Encouraging Openness in Reporting Mistakes
00:25:45
Speaker
So my listeners, they're looking at their organizations and their teams and thinking, actually, I really want to focus on this. I want this to be something we bring in and make real and benefit from our approach to mistakes. Practically, what could they do today, this afternoon? What could they implement?
00:26:09
Speaker
So there's a couple of things. I mean, one, one exercise that I think is really practical and I've found helpful and other people have found helpful is to go like literally walk through a workplace and look for the warning signs. Signs again, that say things like don't forget, please remember, be careful. Like how can we use those signs as a spark for better mistake proofing?
00:26:36
Speaker
I think that's one very practical exercise. And then I think when it comes to asking people to speak up, I mean, I think that that's the key. Like I've heard leaders sometimes shake their head and say, well, you know, my employees aren't speaking up and they should. Like I think you have to continually encourage them to speak up. And I think the other practical step is first off for leaders to model the sort of candor that they would want to see from their employees. So when leaders,
00:27:06
Speaker
are willing and able to say things like, I made a mistake, I was wrong, I could be wrong, so let's go investigate. Let's go test this idea before we implement it company-wide to say, I don't know, but let's go find out. I don't know, so let's test the idea. I mean, things like that, it's not meant to be false humility, but I think just modeling some of those behaviors and then encouraging people that work for you to do the same, of encouraging them
00:27:36
Speaker
you know, and saying, if you ever have questions, please speak up. If you see a concern or a risk or a problem or a mistake that could happen, please bring it up. If you've made a mistake,
00:27:51
Speaker
please bring it up. If you have an idea for improvement, please bring it up. So you encourage people to speak up. That doesn't mean everybody will immediately do so, depending on what they've experienced in the past. But then here's the key. The most important thing then is rewarding it when people respond to that encouragement. And to me, the other thing I would say about that is rewarding goes beyond not punishing.
00:28:18
Speaker
I think people like Tim Clark and Amy Edmondson who talk about the need to actively reward people. That doesn't mean giving them money directly, right? But that reward is responding positively, thanking them, and then taking some sort of action.
00:28:36
Speaker
that turns those words into improvement. I mean, I think that's the best way to reward people, create something positive. Those people who spoke up will realize, okay, that was all right. That was good. I'm going to speak up more. And then the people that were being more cautious about speaking up might start seeing some of that, then they might choose to speak up themselves. So, you know, to kind of summarize the recommendation is model it, encourage it, reward it.
00:29:04
Speaker
You could use that template to all sorts, couldn't you? It's common sense. That doesn't mean that it's happening and that it's easy to do. I think there's something there around vulnerability in being able to
00:29:24
Speaker
talk about mistakes or not knowing something. I so often see leaders that feel they need to be the solution still and can't be there going, actually, I don't know, or actually thinking, maybe you know better than me, you know, that doesn't, you know, and leaving a space for that. So it's a great little tool to use.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that, you know, there's other, I think, practical tips. Like, if there's a meeting and you're brainstorming ideas, I think, you know, the most powerful leader in the room should wait to speak last.
00:30:02
Speaker
Because otherwise people may just anchor in too quickly on the boss's idea and limit their thinking or their approach. I think there's times when leaders should certainly actively invite people to challenge. Let's say a leader does present some sort of proposal.
00:30:22
Speaker
I think you want to invite and ask people, is there anything I'm missing? Is there anything that could be better? Or even, I've seen some people recommend you assign one person in the room.
00:30:35
Speaker
Like your job is to challenge things even to the point of being critical. And then, you know, the leader hopefully has to not get upset. The leader has to respond constructively or, you know, depending on how naturally that occurs within a team, you really do have to invite that level of discussion and debate. Now it might take a little bit longer to make a final decision, but the point is it might be a better decision.
00:31:02
Speaker
I love having that diverse thinking in the room and drawing on it so that people feel comfortable. We're coming to a close. What have I not asked you about this subject that we really need to get asking you?
Measuring Psychological Safety
00:31:23
Speaker
I think one other question would be, how do we know
00:31:28
Speaker
the level of psychological safety in a team or in different teams across the company. Sometimes you can measure things that would be countable and driven by a sense of psychological safety. So I've seen in different workplaces, you can count things like the number of employee ideas that have been brought forward. And maybe more importantly, the number of ideas that have been implemented.
00:31:52
Speaker
If you see that number increasing, a big driver of that would be people feeling more safe to point out problems, to suggest ideas, and to go test them. In some healthcare workplaces, a measure of incident reports could be a proxy for psychological safety.
00:32:12
Speaker
You see an increase in problems reported. That doesn't mean there's more problems. It usually means there's more reporting. And then as we have more reporting, we should have more improvement and the number of problems and reports.
00:32:27
Speaker
should both be going down. There are survey mechanisms that can be used. Tim Clark, I recommend his book, The Four Stages of Psychological Safety. His company, Leader Factor, for one, they have a lot of free resources and information about psychological safety. They also have a very well-validated survey that's 12 questions that can be asked, and you can come up with a numerical score.
00:32:55
Speaker
of again, how safe do people feel in different dimensions of psychological safety? You can compare those numbers against benchmarks. You can compare those numbers against other teams to understand your baseline before you go and try to consciously or intentionally improve levels of psychological safety. So I think you can try to measure it directly or indirectly. You don't mandate and declare it's safe now.
00:33:23
Speaker
Like there's going to be progress and it can be measured through surveys. Surveys are imperfect, but I think it's better than just assuming.
Downsides of Punishing Mistake Reporting
00:33:32
Speaker
How does mistake making and health and safety fit together? I think you have to have a culture of encouraging people to report concerns or incidents and then react to them constructively.
00:33:49
Speaker
I heard a story recently related to safety in a factory where they were, of course, reminding people that safety is important. Well, people don't want to get hurt. They know safety is important, but far too often organizations, it's the leaders who are not focusing on safety.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I heard the story, it was well-intended, but it was so badly designed. You know, this, this factory supposedly did like, you know, a monthly performance bonus for different teams based on their performance. On some level that sounds reasonable, but there's always risk that that gets dysfunctional. And here was the dysfunction. They were trying to emphasize safety, but if there was a safety incident reported in a given month, nobody got their bonus.
00:34:40
Speaker
So you say, oh wow, what would you expect? Yeah. It doesn't take too much digging, does it? To just think, wow, what behaviors is that going to drive? Yeah. People stopped reporting incidents, which is absolutely the last thing that you want. Yeah, yeah. So be careful with incentives and things that would undermine the attempt to improve health and safety.
00:35:03
Speaker
My client and one of his direct reports who's self-confessed perfectionist, so very, very allergic to mistake making. One of her targets was to like increase the number of mistakes she was making, to just be able to report on how she was taking small incremental, you know, experiments and noticing that that will affect how many things don't go according to plan. So it was quite a nice little
00:35:34
Speaker
way of thinking about it. Yeah. That's an interesting thought of like, I'm going to try to make more mistakes. One thing I've tried to get better at is acknowledging my mistakes. Yeah. And like try to take some of the emotion out of it. I try to more often say things like, Oh, okay. My mistake. No, I was wrong. And then, okay, maybe move on from it. Right. If it's a little minor thing and part of it's a reminder of, okay, I make a lot of mistakes every day.
00:36:04
Speaker
If I made a mistake that was a really huge mistake, I would feel worse about it. You know, there's always that balance of reflecting and learning, you know, thinking about it for the appropriate length of time without unnecessarily dwelling on it. Because I think we can paralyze ourselves. Ruminating, yeah. Ruminating. That's a word I didn't know until recently. Oh, I love that word. It's horrible, isn't it? Tried to not ruminate over my rumination.
00:36:33
Speaker
I need to improve my rumination levels. Yeah. I know I've interviewed a lot of people who've gone through their own journey of acknowledging mistakes without beating ourselves up for them.
Acknowledging and Learning from Small Mistakes
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah. There's I think helpful reflection and then there's the rumination and the dwelling and, and, and I, and I think trying to take action. So, okay, acknowledging I made a mistake.
00:36:59
Speaker
There's some mistakes where like, I just slipped up and used the wrong word. Okay. Whoops. My mistake. Let me say that again. I don't know how I would mistake proof that in the future. And unless I try to consciously speak a little more slowly than I want to, or, you know, without talking too slow.
00:37:14
Speaker
But look, I mean, even, you know, when I interview people on podcasts and I try to remind people, like, if you stumble over a word like I just did there or you, you say the wrong thing or you slip up, just correct yourself or like, there's no need to go do an edit.
00:37:29
Speaker
Nobody sounds perfect all day long and that's normal so yeah i think trying to remember things like that and part of why i started doing the my favorite mistake podcast was to have people share their stories. Of favorite meaningful important mistakes as a reminder to people listening everybody makes mistakes.
00:37:48
Speaker
Like these incredibly successful people, they're not successful because they never made mistakes. I think if anything, like your friend you were talking about, like they're making more mistakes, but they're acknowledging in them and they're learning from them and they're, they're failing forward, if you will. Yeah. I like failing forward. I don't like failing, but if you are going to fail, fail small and fail forward. Yeah.
Where to Find Mark Graben Online
00:38:11
Speaker
Mark, where can people find you? Where do you live? Not physically, but... I live online. Yeah, I'm online. My name is unique enough. I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn or through Google. My website is markgraven.com. If people want to check out my podcast, they can go to mistakespodcast.com. And my book that I released last year, The Mistakes That Make Us, can be found at mistakesbook.com.
00:38:42
Speaker
And, you know, if people are curious about the book, about learning from mistakes and, you know, there's a free chapter PDF that people can download on the website. If they're afraid buying the book might be a mistake, they can test it out. They can test it out. Thank you, Mark. Really lovely to talk to you and learn loads from you. So that's always really good.
00:39:06
Speaker
Well, thanks, Corinne. Thank you for the questions and for spurring the discussion and the opportunity to talk today. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Visible Leader podcast. To stay up to date with the latest episode, hit the subscribe button. And I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave me a review. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me. Corinne Hines on LinkedIn.