By Jorge Manuel Zelaya Fajardo
www.jorgemanuelzelaya.com
January 15th, 2020
Profitability is a financial vocabulary word that the Royal Spanish
Academy of Language (RAE) defines as
the ability to generate profit or benefit. Therefore I will, in these brief
lines, dare to extrapolate (to apply it to
another level to conclude something) the word profitability to the issue of
human error.
One of the stories that most impressed me about the extraordinary
professional career of Jack Welch (Executive
Director of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, considered one of the most
outstanding business leaders of all time) was when I read his book Straight
from the Gut in 2002. In the book he
explains what had happened to him when a chemical plant, ran by him,
accidentally blew up in 1963. Fortunately no one died in the incident nor was
there any human damage. Jack Welch was convinced that he was going to be fired
for what happened. The magnitude of the mistake made was such that he imagined
nothing different from immediate dismissal without contemplation. However,
something very strange happened. When he met his boss, he felt a basic exercise
of the Socratic method. The boss immediately asked him 4 questions: Why
did the accident happen? What would you have done differently? Why did you do
what you did? Why didn't you do something else? Completely amazed, shortly after Welch asked
his boss: Am I fired? And his boss replied: ¨No. How are we going to fire you
if we have just invested thousands of dollars in training you how to blow up plants. Now your responsibility is to train all our
bosses in all our plants all over the world, how not to blow them.¨
Impressive story. Making a mistake is not synonymous with
failure. Making a mistake is part of
a process that has diverted us from going from point A to point B. Failure is
an emotional state where we have made a conscious decision that we will no
longer move forward because we are affected so much by what happened and it is
not possible to try again .
To err is human, it is inevitable. It is intrinsic to the nature of each
of us; but it is also unique in the human race, to learn from the mistake
made, evolving by seeking not to make it again. Do not take that path, as we
have proven that it does not take us to the destination.
If you are a skeptical reader, you will be thinking: These lines are
only a justification for making mistakes and getting rid of them in an easy fashion. This could not
be farther from the truth.
In my personal and professional life I confessed to having made more
mistakes than successes. My accounting analysis demonstrates considerable
numerical difference. Painful mistakes have cost me money, wasted time and even
jobs. Making a mistake is human, but making the same mistake repeatedly
indicates some pathological behavior. "You
have to make new mistakes every day, never the same old ones" is one
of Esther Dyson's key quotes. Dyson is a leading economist at Harvard
University. I completely agree with her remark.
In my university classes or in the seminars I teach, I always quote that a catholic believer should not confess a sin with the father in
the sacrament of confession, be acquitted and then commit the same sin again
and again on a weekly basis. Although mercy is immense and plethoric, the
believer should not abuse from it. Reflecting on why he did it, can lead to a change
in attitude and behavior that should contribute to not making the same mistake
again.
I am clear that there is a certain scale of the mistake´s magnitude.
There are fatal errors with fatal consequences. Hence the error must be
attacked with mathematical rigor and philosophical appreciation, to remove that
tremendous emotional burden of guilt that does not help us at all. You make a
mistake, take responsibility for the consequences of what happened, don't be
martyred or victimized by feeling extraordinary guilt. Every mistake has
consequences.
Human beings feel bad enough when they make mistakes. No need for public
humiliation. The extraordinary bosses call attention in private for the mistake
made, while rewarding in public. The mediocre ones do the exact opposite.
I think that a practical
algorithm when we make a mistake is to do three things: a) Ask yourself the hard questions of why did it happened , b) Become absolutely responsible
for the consequences of what happened and c) Solve it, correct it and move forward as quickly as possible. This, obviously, like most organizational and
personal improvement challenges, is much easier said than done.
The mistake made is one of the best teachers in the world. It makes us
think and reflect. It makes us plan and budget. It makes us evaluate and
improve. Now, the student has to be in class to learn from the teacher and put
into practice what they have learned, since true knowledge is an executable
file. Learning from our mistakes, without blaming ourselves, is very
effective and above all, profitable.
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