Yesterday’s post was about George Bush’s last press conference, in which he reflected on mistakes he has made. Perhaps Bush’s entire presidency would have been different if he had the knack of regularly dissecting his decisions and pinpointing where he could have done better.
There is a lesson in this for all of us. The adage “Mistakes are good, so long as you learn from them” is familiar to all of us. Perhaps the ability to properly detect and dissect mistakes is a key to success.
Let’s use Bush #43 for illustration.
#1: So, George, what you were trying to say was not a mistake, only that the banner conveyed a different message than was intended?
Clearly putting a “Mission Accomplished” on a aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message.
#2: George, some rhetoric was an obvious mistake. What about any actual decision or actions?
Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake
#3: In all of the long and hard thinking on Katrina, the only potential mistake you focused on was whether or not you were fairly critiqued for your decision to not land Air Force One in New Orleans?
I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina — you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and — is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?
#4: Your mistake on Social Security was the timing of sharing the idea?
I believe that running the Social Security idea right after the ‘04 elections was a mistake…And the reason why is, is that — you know, one of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas, by the way, is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse. In other words, sometimes legislatures have the tendency to ask, why should I take on a hard task when a crisis is not imminent? And the crisis was not imminent for Social Security as far as many members of Congress was concerned.
#5: If other officials gave you better information, your decisions would have been better. Have you heard of the “buck stops here”?
One thing about the presidency is that you can make — only make decisions, you know, on the information at hand. You don’t get to have information after you’ve made the decision. That’s not the way it works.
#6: This might be my favorite, as it directly followed the prior quote. So, when you get new information after you made a decision–presumably information that might have affected your decision–you do what? Plow forward?
And you stand by your decisions, and you do your best to explain why you made the decisions you made.
#7) Two of the biggest issues in the Iraq war were Abu Ghraib and not finding weapons of mass destruction. Bush mentioned these but cast them as disappointments, not mistakes. I never heard anyone say “Its okay to have disappointments so long as you learn from them”.
There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way.
I don’t mean to pick on George Bush. I voted for him twice. I do think his intentions were rightous. And I think he faced tough times and difficult decisions. My point is simply this: the ability to learn from mistakes is a key to one’s success. To excel at this, one needs to be effective at identifying mistakes, accepting accountability, and reflecting on what could have been done better.
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I made a lot of mistakes during my 36 years in the telecom business. My thoughts on the subject:
I remember one in 1971. I transposed digits in a customer’s telephone number when I wrote a move order. The wrong customer was disconnected. I knew that I had a tendency to do that. That time, it affected a customer. Consequences are important. I never did it again.
Recognize your problem areas. Beyond transposing digits, I have a problem with decimals. I had no problem asking people to check my work and count the zeros. Even in the middle of a meeting. Numbers are not my strong suit. I found that my willingness to acknowledge my weak area opened the door for others to do the same. I happily stepped up to do customer presentations for others. I was good at it.
Not all “mistakes” are the same. Some are due to a knowledge gap. Some are human error. Both of these are relatively easy to admit and avoid in the future. Then there are the blunders. Your level of experience should have prevented it. You frankly screwed up.
These are the toughest to admit. Sometimes its even tough for a colleague to call it out, because you are a friend, a good person, everyone makes mistakes. This is where company culture makes the difference. It has got to be okay to admit, or to point out, a blunder. Quickly. Do what you can to fix it, and enlist others to help. Otherwise, billions are spent and you are still in Iraq.