As a business owner, I have told my staff if they feel more than 75% confident in their decision….go for it! Checking and confirming and verifying takes up a lot of time, and time equals money. If their decision turns out to be wrong, it can become a learning experience. We’ll have a valuable interaction and determine what we learned from the mistake, what we could have done differently, and at the end of the day – we learn more! As a business owner, I can understand my employees line of thinking. The employee learns my viewpoint. Both viewpoints are valuable from a coaching standpoint.
You can learn a lot about someone when they make a mistake. How do they react to that mistake? Do they try to cover it up? Do they ignore it and hope it goes away? Dealing with a mistake in a forthright manner shows integrity.
Mistakes are a good thing. Repeated mistakes are the problem.
Ryan Poterack is an entrepreneur living in North Carolina.
