Making Mistakes

If there is one thing we can all agree on it is the premise that nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. Big ones. Little ones. Significant ones. Unimportant ones. We try not to, of course. In fact, many of us devote a good deal of our energies to avoid or not make mistakes. Nevertheless, they are as much apart of our lives as is breathing. Let's face it: none of us, as much as we may hate to admit it, is programmed for perfection. So, given that common denominator that we all share, the trick is what we do when we do cause those annoying blips to pop up on our personal screens.

No, communication will not erase mistakes or helps us not make them. But effective, time-sensitive, and honest communication can help minimize our mistakes and even generate greater respect and support for us than we may have had before a mistake occurred. A couple of quick examples can illustrate this. In March, 1989, an Exxon oil tanker - the Exxon Valdez - spilled over 11 million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound. How did the leaders at Exxon respond? Slowly and with irresponsibly. They covered up. They failed to take proper action to fix the giant and costly mess. They made things worse and alienated millions of people in doing so. In 1982 and 1986, some one or some group of people tampered with one of its most popular products: Tylenol. The tragic result was that several innocent customers died. Unlike Exxon, the parent company of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson, accepted responsibility for this dirty piece of sabotage and recalled the entire product. The public embraced their actions and remained loyal to them.

People understand that mistakes occur because we all make them. Given that, it is best to communicate to the proper public or publics when they happen. This is true in our personal lives as well as in the public arena. People can and do forgive and move-on when they believe they are being leveled with. When they do not, then the ramifications of a mistake begin to multiply. Since we all make them so often, it seems we would be doing ourselves and our own publics a big favor if we acted like effective communicators when we made them. After all, who among us wants to make more mistakes than we already do?