Repeating Mistakes -The Cost And Solutions

I was sitting in my “Fonzie office” earlier today, and the thought came to me that humans are not that great at learning from their mistakes.

And I think that this applies at every level – from individuals to corporations to society in general.

Some people say that a mistake you make more than once is actually a choice – because you could have learned from what happened the first time, but chose not to.

There is, of course, a large measure of truth in that, and yet how many of us make those choices?

I know I do – and I don’t consider myself to be of below average intelligence (whatever that means).

But clearly I am – in some areas at least.

And I suspect most people are.

I have already touched on a different aspect of this issue in another article, which looks at the commonly heard phrase “I did my best“, but what popped into my head this morning was the realization that our lives, even the entire world, could be so much more amazing than it already is if we all actually did try to learn from our mistakes.

Supposing that, after you made a mistake of some sort, whether it’s at home in the kitchen or doing DIY, a parenting decision, a project at work, a car accident, or whatever, you took the time and trouble to sit down, either by yourself or with somebody else, and analyze what caused that mistake, and what you could do differently next time to avoid making that same mistake again?

I get that this takes time, and most of us feel that we never have enough of it to go around, but that’s a short-term view.

Longer term, just imagine what the benefits might be:

• Money saved – because some mistakes do have a financial cost, which can be anywhere from small or significant. (There is an oft-quoted “statistic”, which is disputed by some, that almost half of Americans couldn’t handle a $400 emergency, while other says that a large number of them have less than $1,000 saved up in the bank. Either way, unnecessary financial expenses could be more costly than just the money it would take to fix the mistake.)
• Time saved – because you often have to spend even more time clearing up after a mistake and/or doing re-work.
• Relationships saved – because one of the most irritating things in a relationship is when your partner keeps doing the same (wrong) thing over and over again.
• Better-adjusted children – because you are always adapting to ensure your children grow up to be the best they can be, with as few hang-ups as possible.
• Higher productivity – because you waste less time making mistakes.
• Safer roads – because drivers (and pedestrians) are more careful and cause fewer accidents.

I’m sure there are plenty of other benefits, but I think that’s enough to demonstrate that working on minimizing mistakes is worth it.

There’s a saying I came across a long time ago that goes, “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, then you definitely don’t have the time to do it the second time.“

While it’s highly improbable that everybody will stop making all mistakes, it is more doable to ensure you don’t keep making the same ones.

So, what can be done to minimize mistakes?

Well, there are two aspects to this:

1. Trying to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
2. Learning from the ones you do make to help reduce the chances of repeating them.

In terms of the first one, I remember back when I used to work for a major British credit card company, we had a short seminar by Daniel Freedman about why we should implement a technical review process, and how best to do it.

His premise was that it’s better to find what he calls defects before they become errors.

It sounds like nothing more than a semantic difference, but the basic idea was that the sooner during a project you uncover potential errors (or mistakes), which is what he called defects, the less costly it will be.

For example, if you discover that one of the key requirements of the project is wrong (or missing) when you’re reviewing the list of requirements, you can easily fix that before you’ve spent any time or money creating a computer system that won’t meet the needs of the project sponsor.

But if you hadn’t reviewed those requirements (either at all or correctly) and you went ahead and built a computer system that incorporated that mistake (or omission), then the cost of fixing that error would be much larger – you’d have to back and then do a lot of re-work to make the system do what it should have done in the first place, and it would likely put the project behind schedule too, which might end up costing yet more money, both directly in project costs and opportunity costs because the people who have to spend their time putting the mistake right won’t be able to work on other projects.

So, technical reviews were processes we put in place at every crucial step of the project to try to ensure that defects at that stage did not become costly mistakes later on.

It was certainly a good idea in theory, but the practice left a lot to be desired. The implementation of that process was far from ideal, and at first, it was pursued enthusiastically, but as time went on and priorities changed, it was something that people largely only paid lip service to.

One of the key principles was that the people involved in the technical review should at least include some that were not familiar with the work (i.e. the proverbial fresh pair of eyes), but what often happened was that the review team comprised only members of the project team, who were too close to the work being reviewed.

Anyway, let’s get back to the main topic – what can you do if you do make a mistake?

In summary, I would say you need to:

1. Analyze what caused the mistake. This might include steps in the process that were omitted or done out of sequence, not following instructions, poor communication, a lack of quality control, or any number of issues. And, of course, there might be more than one of them, which makes all of this more tricky – it’s not always that difficult to plan for one possible mishap, but to plan for combinations of them is something else (which I’ve written about here).
2. Come up with ideas for preventing that mistake from recurring. This might include brainstorming sessions, individual discussions with the people involved, or even employing industry experts to come in and work with you – or it may be something you can and should do by yourself.
3. Implement any changes that you agree should be made. This might include the creation of checklists or procedures, new safety protocols, using new suppliers, or any number of other possible changes.

Yes, this will take time and effort, at least from you but perhaps others too, and it may seem like a pain, but again, think about the possible benefits.

And it will involve being:

• Honest with yourself (and others) as you investigate the cause(s) of the mistake.
• Being willing to accept that it was your fault. (Some people claim to operate a “no blame” policy, but in my experience, all this does is remove accountability. There is a difference between pinpointing the person, or people, responsible for a mistake, and what you do about it.)
• Motivated to put any changes into practice.
• Conscientious enough to record all of this – what happened, why, the options you considered, and what you decided to change – because that can be a useful reference point for later, should the same or similar circumstance arise.

In addition, I would check out this article about mnemonics, because for most of us, our memory is not as good as we’d often like to think it is. This is why it usually pays to write things down, regardless of how convinced you are you’ll remember the information.

For example, at the company I mentioned above, there was one reasonably complex process I had to do once a year and that was simply not frequent enough to guarantee my remembering all of the correct steps. So, I wrote down absolutely every step that was part of that process, no matter how small, so that I wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel the following year when it was time to run this process again.

So, while making notes and documenting details is one way to minimize the chance of mistakes, it’s also helpful to be able to use any tips and tricks you can to bolster your memory.

I would also suggest going back to the article mentioned above, because this addresses some of the same thought processes.

So, what about me?

Well, I have long been a fan of writing notes about problems I’ve encountered and what I did to fix them.

I know, this is not always the same as my making mistakes, but the principles are similar – making notes you can refer to for when you experience the same issue.

It’s also the case that my decisions and actions have less impact now than they used to – I live alone (since my wife died) with my dogs, I rarely interact with other people (face-to-face or by telephone), and since I work for myself at home (e.g. writing articles for this site, publishing poetry), the business implications of what I do are less significant than they were when I worked in an office with thousands of other employees.

Will I try to follow my own advice, as discussed above?

Yes, I will, where it makes sense to, because one of the things I’ve never enjoyed doing is (unnecessary) rework, as my late wife would have told you.