I’m the champion of making mistakes. I could talk for hours about the mistakes I’ve made in my career. As I’ve grown into leadership and mentorship roles, I try to help people do better by working through their mistakes and avoiding the ones I’ve made. I recently started thinking about the types of mistakes we make and how I would solve for them. So I’ve tried to create a taxonomy of mistakes with proposed actions. This is very much work in progress so I would love to get your feedback.
I see two dimensions to mistakes:
- Category – skill, behaviour or ethics. I think this is a continuum rather than clearly demarcated categories, but still useful.
- Awareness – whether the person knows they’re making the mistake or not.
This gives us six types of mistakes, each with its own proposed action.
Let’s look at each one:
SKILL, UNKNOWN
These are mistakes where the person does not possess the skill needed to do something correctly. For example, I remember I once asked an intern to do some analysis on Excel model so he punched in numbers in the spreadsheet and then used a physical calculator to calculate the answer and punched it in. I realized he had never used Excel before. I believe these are the easiest types of mistakes to solve for. You need to TRAIN the person making such mistakes with the requisite skills.
SKILL, KNOWN
These are mistakes where the person has the requisite skills but makes, say, a silly mistake. An example could be a typo in a document or miscalculating a number. Everyone makes these mistakes from time to time. However, if the person is making similar mistakes repeatedly, maybe they’re not really into the work they’ve been assigned. In such cases, you need to MOTIVATE the person. Help them understand why the work is important and how it will help them achieve their career goals. Perhaps change their incentive structure.
BEHAVIOUR, UNKNOWN
I think the whole set of cognitive biases sit in this bucket. We make mistakes due to how our brains are wired and are most often not aware of it. Looking only for data the confirms our belief (confirmation bias), that then gives us a skewed sense of reality, is a common one. But this goes beyond just cognitive biases. We’re usually blind to how our behaviour affects others and people very often don’t get feedback directly. For example, I could be playing with my phone while talking to someone and not realize that they feel ignored when I do so. An executive coach, mentor or a manager can COACH the person in such cases. Help the person see the behaviours they’re blind to and how it affects them and others, so they can change them.
BEHAVIOUR, KNOWN
All of us are aware of some behaviours that we’re unable (unwilling?) to change. For example, I know that I can be prone to panic selling when the stock market crashes, even though I ‘know’ that it’s the worst time to sell stocks. If you see a person in this situation, you can help them STRUCTURE for their behavioural traits. In my example, I’ve hired a financial advisor to manage my portfolio which I cannot touch directly. This creates an effective buffer against my behavioural traits (and a healthier portfolio).
ETHICAL, UNKNOWN
I took some time to think through this one. I’ll use a controversial example – 50 years ago, and even today in some parts of the world, women were considered good only for staying at home or working clerical jobs. The attitude was so pervasive that I think even people who genuinely loved and respected their wife, mother and sisters were conditioned to think so. Today, of course, we understand that women have equal capabilities and standing in society and limiting or stereotyping them is ethically incorrect. People who exposed themselves to these new ideas were ATTUNED to this understanding and realized the errors of the beliefs they held earlier.
ETHICAL, KNOWN
This bucket comprises of ethical breaches made with full knowledge, for e.g., breaking the law, stealing or intentionally harming others for your benefit. My mantra for such people is AVOID. Call me rigid, but I don’t see redemption when people knowingly make ethical breaches. They can be the nicest people in person and try to whitewash their image with charitable giving, but I’ll never be able to trust them and want nothing to do with them.