How can I be sure when someone has learned from their mistake and earned the right to move on?
Everyone makes mistakes. But that’s not a bad thing as is often assumed.
When viewed correctly, instead of being a barrier, mistakes are the indispensable means to our growth. When someone in your organization makes a mistake and they learn (grow) from it, they have become a better, more capable contributor. In that case the only reasonable thing to do is to let the person move on from their mistake. This confirms the better person they have become instead of anchoring them to a past that is no longer relevant to them.
The key here is learning from the mistake. There is no moving on from a mistake that you are likely to repeat over and over again. That must be addressed then and there with an appropriate consequence. So how do you know? The easiest way is to illustrate with a common example.
Think of an instance where someone has been injured due primarily to their own unsafe act. You are sitting down with them trying to determine if they have learned from the experience. In the best case they own their actions, correct them as best they can, show they have learned from it, and then move on a wiser person.
Did they own it? It’s tempting to think so when they come out and admit what they did, but in most cases this is not ownership – it’s a confession of undisputable fact. A confession is not ownership! It is also usually accompanied by outside blame: circumstances, others, fate…. anything but what they themselves could control – their own actions. There will never be learning without ownership. Why would there be? If everyone and everything else is to blame for your misfortune, all you have learned is that the world is a dangerous and unfair place. Hardly something that will protect you in the future.
Did they try to correct it? Another clue as to whether they owned it is if they try to correct some of the harm done — which is not always possible. If it was someone else’s mistake, then there really is nothing they should be required to do to make amends. If you have to tell them what they should do to make it right, then they have not really owned the mistake. Which leads us to: Did they learn?
In the end, if they have learned, grown and become a wiser more capable person than they were before, you will know it. Ask yourself if you would be shocked, or even just surprised, if something similar happened with the person in the future. Would you be surprised, or would you think, “Yeah, that’s about what I expect from them.” If you honestly believe the latter, then you cannot let them move on without a consequence.
If this seems an arbitrary and somewhat unfair way to assess what is in someone else’s head, all we can say is you know it’s true, the other person (regardless of what they say) knows it, and everyone else in the organization knows it. And being honest with yourself also grants you a great level of predictability. You know who is likely to get hurt because you discern who does and who does not properly value their safety — by their actions! This gives you the opportunity to work with the people who need your help before they injure themselves. The other option is to feign ignorance and just allow them to get hurt. And how fair is that?
-By Ken Chapman, Ph.D.
