Have you ever read and reread over an email ten times before hitting SEND – hoping that you have not put a comma in the wrong place, missed a capital letter, referenced someone incorrectly or overstepped the mark in the wording. We finally hit send and as it is leaving the inbox, we notice that one minor detail that is not right and we start obsessing over it. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I sent out my blog, to be honest when you are sending out your thoughts for all the world to critique it is bloody scary. For whatever reason when I scheduled this one my attention to detail was VERY low and when it landed in my own inbox, I could see multiple errors, cringe time. A couple of well-meaning (and I honestly believe that they are well-meaning) recipients let me know about the errors which a graciously acknowledged and corrected in the master blog so it will not be repeated while facepalming at my inattention. This got me thinking, these people are looking at my blog each week, I assume they are finding some relevance in it as they are still reading it, they are followers of mine and are enjoying what I am writing. I know this because I have been given positive feedback, regardless, I felt really embarrassed when the mistakes were pointed out to me although I had already identified them. I came to two conclusions:
It's much easier to find fault with someone’s work than to compliment it.
We take a disproportionate amount of offence to negative feedback than we feel encouraged by positive feedback.
There is a marvellous invention called a fault finder which is extremely useful to electricians the world over, it enables them to quickly resolve where an electrical circuit has been cut. What is so beneficial about this tool is that it is dealing with wires, wires do not have feelings, they do not care if they have made a mistake by losing contact with their other wire buddy. We need to be more thoughtful when we are dealing with beings of the human variety, those with feelings, expectations of themselves, and a drive to do a good job, they do not appreciate the fault finder quite as much. It can be helpful to think about the motivation behind pointing out the error but it is more than that, we need to foster a culture where people embrace mistakes and feel safe in the knowledge that making mistakes or encountering failure simply means they are on the road to improvement. As a leader, the use of storytelling when pointing out a mistake can be invaluable, it shows your authenticity, vulnerability, and compassion all as one. This is assuming of course you are telling a tale of when you made a cringe-worthy mistake, with vulnerability, not one of being infallible! When the team feels safe to be wrong, or different and make mistakes they will be more creative, contribute more fully and think laterally to problem solve. When you have the right people in your team simply pointing out the error will be enough, they will be mortified that the error has occurred and will likely be one step ahead of you to work out how to fix it.
Love this!