Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Best New Mistakes

Most of us try to avoid mistakes, and when we make them, we try to correct them or minimize their damage before anyone else finds out about them whenever possible. That is not the environment that Michael Alter has created at his company. He began by encouraging his people to take risks. He assured them that they would not be penalized for their mistakes. Still, he did not see a change in behavior. He then tried to share the mistakes that he had made in the past and what he learned from them. All of this was to encourage people to take risks and to dispel fear of making mistakes in his company. Nevertheless, he still found a reluctance to take risks for fear of failure.

Finally, he implemented an innovative idea. He decided to recognize and reward people for their mistakes. He created a “Best New Mistakes” Competition. Employees had to nominate themselves and share the mistake they made and what they learned from it. The mistake had to be a new one to set and reinforce the expectation that the same mistake should not be made twice. In other words, the object of making mistakes is to learn from them in order to be more successful on the next attempt. Winners receive cash and the nominations are shared at a company-wide meeting. Alter realized that he had to do more than communicate his values to the employees, he had to prove them. What do we as leaders communicate with words that needs to be proven?

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