Everyone makes mistakes. We have all heard this many times in our lives. Certainly every manager, executive, entrepreneur, business owner, all of us, try to avoid making mistakes. Mistakes can be costly. In some cases, they can be disastrous to a business whether large or small. As a result, many people and many managers tend to be too cautious in order to avoid mistakes. Large organizations tend to breed this philosophy because of politics, bureaucracy and the fear of reprisals. But there is another side to this issue. If you stand still trying to avoid mistakes you can end up impeding progress, stifling new ideas, and not adapting to changing business conditions. One man holds the record for the most hits in professional baseball. He also holds the record, by a large margin, for the most outs. He is remembered for his hits record. Peter Drucker once wrote I would never promote a person into a top-level job who was not making mistakesotherwise he/she is sure to be mediocre. Good managers must make decisions, it is fundamental to their position. It is inevitable that some of these decisions will be wrong or ineffective. The lesson is that good managers and business people are cautious but not too cautious. They realize that some risks must be taken and some risks are worth taking. Equally important, they learn from their mistakes and rarely repeat them! One of the greatest costs to small businesses is the Opportunity Cost. This cost often results from fear of making a mistake. Top CEOs and business owners use their knowledge and experience (much of it learned from making mistakes) to make well thought out decisions and avoid previous pitfalls. They rarely make critical errors. Great leaders often use their gut instinct to decide issues. What is this really? Years of experience making and learning from mistakes, learning to read people and situations, understanding what data to gather and how to interpret it quickly. And, they have the ability to bring out the best in those around them to ensure that first-rate ideas are being applied to the problem at hand. Optimal solutions are sure to follow!! Do not forget the words of Rita Mae Brown, Good judgment comes from experience; experience often comes from bad judgment |
