Start Something That Matters

by Blake Mycoskie

Conversely, just as you should own up to your mistakes, you must allow room for your employees’ lapses as well. They’ll misfile claims, or lose orders, or damage goods, or insult a customer. Mistakes happen. But the cost of the employees’ slipups may well be less than the benefit of the personal growth they obtain from them and the value they provide to the organization. If someone in our customer-service department makes a $5,000 mistake, yes, that’s money down the drain. But it could also save us a great deal in the future. Why? Well, for one thing, that person will probably never commit that error again. And, best of all, we don’t have to train someone else to do that job—someone who might innocently blunder into that same $5,000 misstep. Now we have someone who is not only experienced but who knows the position’s potential pitfalls and is on guard against further mistakes. It’s even possible that some errors are built into the system itself and that someone is bound to make them no matter what. By allowing people to be open about these lapses, you can correct the system.