Making a mistake is like losing a piece to your puzzle
In an NLP training this weekend, we were talking about the problem of getting people in a particular profession to own up to mistake. Within moments, we realized it wasn't about a particular profession. Most people find it really hard to admit they've made a mistake. If you don't own up to making mistakes, it's hard to learn from them. That's like paying for something and walking out of the store with empty hands. You have the pain of the mistake without the gain of learning from it. This is even more true for organizations. If people won't own up to mistakes, the whole organization misses out on the learning that should come from them. Making a mistake is like losing one piece to your puzzle. If you don't own up to the mistake, no one is going to know that what they just picked up in the the piece you need to complete your puzzle. So as an individual and as an organization, you face the same choice. Am I okay with a puzzle that looks like this...