Mistakes, if we are the ones who make them, and if those mistakes cause damage to others and the company, would we dare to admit our mistakes?
“When we make a mistake and no one knows, how do we feel? And do we tell others that we made a mistake?”
There are probably many more questions, such as: When we make a mistake at work, how do we feel if our boss finds out? And what do we do if that mistake damages the company?
For working people, mistakes can always happen in every job. But every mistake that happens has different consequences. It may cause slight damage to ourselves or others.
Or it may cause widespread damage and affect many people in the workplace as well. Importantly, in every mistake we make, what do we learn from it?
At a famous engineering construction company
James, a new employee, has just started working here for almost a year. James’ responsibilities are designing and estimating projects.
The goal of James’ job is to find a way to design a project that meets the project’s specifications and delivers the best possible price. This means beating the competition in terms of design and price.
Because in this industry, there are many competitors who like to undercut prices. Therefore, people who are capable of designing and estimating project prices are very important to the success of the company.
Although James is younger than the others in the department, his outstanding performance has helped the company’s sales team get several big projects in a row. This has made James a favorite of many people who want him to design and price them.
Because of this, James had to face a huge amount of work flowing from the project sales team, causing James to never refuse the increasing amount of work. As a result, he had to work day and night to complete every job that came in on time.
One day, while James was busy estimating the price of a project,
His phone rang. A client of a major project called and told him that his company had won the bid for the job. But the client couldn’t help but ask James, “Why is the price for this job so low? 15% lower than the second place finisher.”
James replied, “Oh, maybe it’s because the second one has other costs or has higher costs than us.”
The customer replied, “Hmm, but it probably won’t be much cheaper. But never mind. Congratulations. Please inform the project sales team to prepare to sign the contract for this project.”
“Sure, thank you very much.”
The customer’s words made James think again, “Could something have gone wrong?”
Curious, James opened the project file to look at the details, and then he realized something was wrong. “Oh no, we miscalculated a lot,” James had miscalculated the cost of the project due to not reviewing or checking the calculation formulas carefully.
We might think that this kind of work must have some mistakes, which is normal. But the mistake in James’ case this time was not a small mistake. Due to the wrong calculation formula, James miscalculated the price a lot, resulting in the project losing almost five million baht.
Now James knows that he is the cause of the problem in this job, but what should he do?
First choice
James thought he was in the right. He said he was a victim of the situation.
Because he thought that the sales team for this project was the one who was wrong to choose him for this job, even though they knew that he worked very hard and had to do many projects at the same time, which led to the results of this mistake and damage.
And he had done many design and cost estimation jobs before, and had never made a mistake like this before. But it was because of the project sales team that caused him to encounter this problem. His boss was also at fault for never finding a way to help alleviate the problem of the amount of work he received from many project sales teams. Moreover, his colleagues or seniors in the team never extended a hand to help him when he had to work hard.
He feels dissatisfied and hates everyone around him for making him have to face this problem. This problem may affect his career.
James chose to protect himself, focusing on himself. He chose not to accept his mistake, instead blaming others (even though he knew deep down that he was the one who made the mistake, but he didn’t want this to ruin his reputation that he had worked so hard to build up).
Second option
James, when he realized that he was the one who made a mistake, started by thinking about the consequences. Who would suffer from his mistake this time?
The production, operations, and installation departments will also suffer because the project costs are wrong and the budget is not enough to work. They will definitely have to work hard to find a way to solve this problem.
Procurement will also have to suffer because the project cost budget may not be enough for procurement. We may have to ask the executives for additional budget.
The boss also had to suffer with the problems that occurred in many departments, which were caused by the mistakes that James made.
And James was thinking further that if he refused to accept this job from the client because the job was a loss, would that be good? But he thought about it and found out that he couldn’t do it because the negative consequences were that the client would confiscate the auction deposit and might blacklist his company from participating in future auctions, which would result in much more damage than this job that was a loss.
James has calculated the damage in all aspects and has thought of a plan to deal with some problems, at least enough to alleviate the problem of the project’s losses.
James gathered his courage and decided to go tell his boss about the mistake he made on this job, along with presenting a comprehensive solution plan to explain to his boss.
James chose to tell the truth because he saw the impact on others and the company. He chose to admit his mistake even though he knew deep down that this matter might destroy the reputation he had built up for a long time. However, he chose the path that made him feel the most comfortable even though the consequences might be punished.
If we were James, which path would we choose?
As I said at the beginning, it is normal to encounter some problems at work. But what is not normal is that if we encounter problems or we are part of the problem, how do we choose to deal with them?
As in James’s case, both types of behaviors show that come from two types of attitudes:
If you choose the first option , James is in the Inward Mindset mode. He sees everyone around him as setting him up to be a victim of this problem. Instead, James is honest with himself by admitting his mistake, but he doesn’t.
He chose to betray himself ( Self-Betrayal ) by finding various reasons to support himself, such as seeing himself as important to the organization and pushing the problem or responsibility for this problem to others. Doing this in the end does not benefit James himself, others, or the company at all.
Because now the problem has occurred. If only people avoid it and throw the problem at each other, it will become that the whole team or everyone involved will be in the Inward Mindset mode. The result is that the problem will never end and may get worse because everyone is divided, disunited, and does not help each other. There is only loss.
If you choose the second option , James is in the Outward Mindset mode. He sees the importance of others because he doesn’t want others to suffer because of his mistakes.
He chose to face the truth and offered some solutions in exchange for help from other agencies, other people involved and his boss.
James started with a positive attitude towards problems and started approaching others with an Outward Mindset. Others will definitely be willing to help him. Starting approaching others with an Outward Mindset can also make others become Outward Mindset as well.
So this problem will not be a mistake that he has to deal with alone. He will definitely have his friends and bosses to help him.
Research in organizations abroad, such as the case study of Ford Motor, which used Outward Mindset in its work, resulted in a reduction in problems and errors in the organization by several times. Team relationships were significantly improved, and companies that had previously suffered losses were able to turn around to profits in a short period of time.
So if we want to build an organization with an Outward Mindset, we have to start with ourselves first. That is why we should have an Outward Mindset.
For more articles about Outward Mindset, please visit:
Quitting because of the boss has become a reason that makes many people have to change jobs.
Employees’ Inward Mindset That May Cause Companies to Close Down
Source:
https://arbingerinstitute.com/Landing/TheOutwardMindset.htmlng/TheOutwardMindset.html
