Back to the Notes from the Coach Table of Contents

October 2004 - Debriefing Mistakes

Musing

When I think of my "favorite things", Fall is at the top of the list. It is
a sensory delight: the golden larch in the high country; the flaming red
burning bush in my back yard; the crispness in the air and our apples; the
final harvest from the vegetable garden; the beautiful colors of winter
squash; the harvest moon; the powered sugar sprinkling of the first snow in
the mountains, hints of the deep, glorious snow to come.

The kids are back in school. Are you? A commitment to life-long learning
is a great strategy for a rich, long life. How do you plan to upgrade your
knowledge and skill this coming year?

A highlight of September for me was the honor of emceeing the FIRST UN
International Peace Day celebration in Whatcom County. It was a powerful,
moving, inspiring event and was sponsored by our local Peace and Justice
Center. Please mark September 21 on your calendar for next year - and
hopefully very soon we will need Civic field to hold all the people united
in their prayer for a more peaceful world each September 21st.
For many people, particularly perfectionists, the words "mistake" and
"failure" are equivalent to emotional torture. On my filter, the words
simply mean I got unexpected results and I now have new information I didn't
have before, i.e. a learning experience. If we want to encourage risking in
the workplace or in our lives, we need to change our minds about these
words. Two activities that support the learning process around mistakes are
"Mistake of the Month" and the debriefing process.

Mistake of the Month:

Find a way to acknowledge risks and "mistakes" that lead to big learnings.
Some organizations have a "Golden Egg" award (find or make a golden egg)
that the employee gets to keep on their desk for a month. It is awarded to
the person (by the team or group) whose "mistake" resulted in the greatest
learning for the group. The goal is to share your learning so the rest of us
don't have to learn it the hard way! Another strategy is to have a "mistake
of the month" club bulletin board - share your biggest learning this month.
Both of these strategies work to create a culture where learning and
teamwork are valued, and hiding mistakes or blaming others are decreased.

Debriefing:
I first learned this process in the military. Using this process will
greatly increase the odds of your team creating more safety for "learning
experiences" and increase your success and productivity.

Sit down with your team or work group and brainstorm the following questions
after an event, completing a project or a "situation". Record their answers
on a flip chart. Let them answer first, before you answer.

1) What results did we create?
2) What worked or went well?
3) What didn't work?
4) What did we learn?
5) What will we do differently next time?
6) How will we leverage what did work?

Bonus: You can also do this process alone with your own personal "learning
experiences".

Food for Thought

The First Word:

“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run
carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to
die. The truth is you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't
even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and
have a lot more fun while they're doing it.” - Anne Lamott

The Final Word:

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong,
because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward
with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.
Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can,
paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.” - Dr.
David M. Burns

Laugh of the Month

A client sent me the following - enjoy!

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to
generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead
horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government, in public education, and in a lot of corporate
America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride
horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve
the dead horse's performance.
10. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course...
11. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Back to the Notes from the Coach Table of Contents

	Home	About Janet Ott	Services	Newsletter	Testimonials	Resources	Contact	Site Map
	Copyright © 2003 Janet Ott