By José Luis Vieyra
Before we get into today´s article, we want to share with you that we diversified, extended and nourish this space thanks to the arrival of José Luis Vieyra as collaborator. We wish you find the same happiness, new perspectives, growth and development in his words that we find when we share with him our work and life, as he is a great consultant and friend. Enjoy! And welcome José Luis!
During this month I was fortunate to contribute with an accompaniment learning process with the Human Capital area members in a Mexican company operating in Central America. All levels and positions in the company participated in the process.
The purpose of this lines is to generate a reflection in you, kind reader, about error management, using what was lived with that group and my glimpses as I connected them with Blumenstein Theory.
The error and the witch hunt for the guilty one
The first saying in Latin I integrated to my memory in the dawn of my formation was: “Errare humun est” that literally means: “To err is human”. I bring up the relationship people have with mistakes, wishing that it may be as revealing as it was to me, when I interacted with more than 125 people whose global function, among others, is to promote and propitiate the growth and development inside the social system called organization.
In the dictionary we find two meanings for mistake; the first one corresponds to having an idea, opinion or expression that a person considers true, but it really is false or incorrect. The second one has to do with an action that is not correct, right or adequate.
It seems as if in our culture we´ve integrated that making a mistake is equal to not being right and hence, who makes a mistake is “wrong”. So, by this strand we´ll share this delivery.
As part of the working methodology that I use, with the purpose of co-creating in the formation forums in which I intervene, I question the participants about doubts, concerns, unconformities, disagreements and/or reflections regarding my contributions.
Regularly one or two people ask something or share a reflection, and that invites others to participate. In this case, I pushed over and over in that direction and there was no answer. Because I didn´t have the result I was looking for, I felt baffled, and by the definition of mistake, then I was mistaken.
Blumenstein Theory proposes that when you are not achieving the purpose, you should check the form you are using, because it´s possible you are not inviting them to co-construct. When I realized what my “mistake” was, I tried using another form that could increase the possibilities of achieving it. Instead of making an open exploration I did it individually or in pairs. The result changed. I stared hearing feedback, reflections, and doubts! I was fulfilling my purpose.
I must confess that the curiosity took me to not conform with the purpose that I´ve just achieved, and to investigate their “reasons” for not throwing their feedback in an open way. There was a very simple and uniform answer: “What stops me is the fear of being wrong”, it was so that if the person had a directive, management role or nor, the answer was the same. As we had a common denominator, I explored if that behavior was exclusive in the room. Everyone acknowledged that this behavior was a usual phenomenon in the everyday activities, with one variant in the behavior before the mistake, because the company looks for the ones responsible and they are punished, generating “collateral effects” in the work environment and the group and individual productivity.
Towards an “error management”
It´s clear that for the people and the company, error management can mean a survival topic. If I feel threatened, I´ll stop taking risks so I won´t make mistakes, limiting and/or cancelling the possibility to learn, launch new ideas, constrain proactivity and creativity impacting in the group and individual productivity as a consequence.
If we reflect about if the origin of a mistake is connected to a person, in a concrete way, that person we identify as “carrier” of a certain type or errors, then what the person will probably do is hide the error and blame someone else, wasting the opportunity of learning, besides from Blumenstein Theory´s perspective, we leave out other members of the social system, whose behaviors are contributing to the situation, without recognizing their co-responsibility of the order in the social system.
In this case the rising question is, if acting as we do will get us to construct a new reality. If the answer is no, then Blumenstein Theory offers new possibilities, for the results of any social system, any of them might be, are a co-construction of every member of it.
In my eyes, applying Blumenstein Theory, in this case, the first thing that would stand out is the necessity of defining the general purpose of this group and then specifically about the error. For example, If it was declared for an error, that the purpose was to find the cause, and at the end to decide the actions to minimize the impact, maybe, the same persons would propose a training as a solution for developing the necessary abilities to execute their function more efficiently. In other cases the proposal would be a accompaniment period so the person surpass a personal obstacle. Some other situations may demand adjustments to the inefficient processes; it could even happens so that if the person had a profile for a determined position, the emergent alternative would be relocation, and in more extreme situations disengagement from the company.
If what you´re looking for is for the person to grow and to generate a good life, one of the Blumenstein Theory´s proposals is to promote a different way of looking at the mistake, a way to invite to take responsibility, for a leader or collaborator, adding the necessity of pulling apart the mistake from the person that commit it, treating both this elements as they are: two different things: the mistake as mistake; the person as a person.
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