"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
Thomas Szasz
Hungarian born MD, Author
Hungarian born MD, Author
All employees including management, make mistakes. What managers and those they manage do about it varies greatly.
Regardless of whether you are a manager or one of the managed, what do you do?
Regardless of whether you are a manager or one of the managed, what do you do?
What I do depends on the circumstances. Mistakes due to obvious negligence, particularly those with serious consequences, are one thing while lessor stuff is not that big a deal.
ReplyDeleteAnything that will not result in termination I then work through with the person who committed the error so we can learn what happened and not repeat in the future.
i'm reminded of a story...an employee made an error that ended up costing the company $10,000. the employee got summoned to his manager's office and said "i'm sorry and i understand why you need to fire me."
ReplyDeletethe manager responded, "fire you? why i would do that? i just invested $10,000 in your training".
this is probably a little exaggerated but you get the point. eveyone makes mistakes - i think the issue comes down to whether you learn from the mistake and the frequency and severity of the mistakes.
Personally I think it is as simple as recognizing that responses to mistakes made by those below you, your peers and/or those higher in the organization should be varied and well considered rather than "one size fits all."
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