How to Put Others’ Mistakes to Work to Help You Avoid Your Own

It’s tough when you unintentionally do something that messes things up for your business.? Did you ever think that a blunder you did could help someone else? Or, that theirs can help you??? Read on…

?Understanding Human Error

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The impact of most blunders ranges from mere embarrassment to disaster to tragedy.

Psychology professor James Reason studied the science of “human error” and grouped such blunders into three buckets:? Strategic and operational errors, unintended slips and lapses, and overall mistakes. where things simply fail to achieve intended outcomes.?

Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonson said in her 2024 book The Right Kind of Wrong that there are “praiseworthy” and “intelligent” failures (where you test hypotheses and practice, fail, then learn to get better) and “blameworthy” and “basic” failures (these are the most preventable slips, lapses and goof-ups).?

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(Almost) Everyone Goofs Up Sometimes

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My focus here is on the latter – the blameworthy, basic blunders.? It’s my belief that they’re more prevalent, and may overall have more negative business impact, than many strategic and operational errors.? That’s because they can be made by anyone, anywhere, and at any time.

?During a recent webinar I conducted with entrepreneurs and small business owners, a poll of attendees told me that 95% made at least one big blunder in the last 12 months.? Nearly two-thirds reported making 1 to 4 blunders, and one in five had made between 5 and 8 blunders.

?The causes, according to Reason and Edmonson, are typically things like inattention, distraction, fatigue, stress, faulty assumptions, ignorance and/or ineptitude.?

?An expletive (like “F!%#&”) typically gets uttered the moment you realize what you’ve done.? This (using more polite language) is your “Uh-Oh! moment,” because your mistake is:

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·???????? Unintentional and Unexpected (surprising because success was expected)

·???????? Humbling (especially to those responsible)

·???????? Observable (visible to others)

·???????? Hardship (to the ones responsible who must now fix something)

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Many organizations try to create and maintain cultures that reward smart risk-taking and leverage learnings from failures. ?But these mostly focus on capturing lessons from a firm’s own mistakes.?

?Learning from Others’ Mistakes: Two Important Steps

Another useful tool: study and apply lessons from external blunders.?

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Investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet once said “It’s good to learn from your mistakes.? But it’s better to learn from other peoples’ mistakes.”?? Especially when there are so many Uh-Oh! blunders to study.

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The key to UhOhology? – at least that’s what I’m calling it – is finding a good supply of blunders and failures to learn from.? Or, being alert to noticing them as they pop up in the news, online and other sources.?

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The blunders don’t have to be in your business or industry. You just need to think analogously to draw relevant lessons and questions to ask yourself and your company.? I recommend simple a two-step process:

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1.????? Observe and Understand, then

2.????? Think and Apply

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Here are a few examples:

Observe & Understand:

Years ago, my own entrepreneurial business, WhirlWhims LLC, launched an original new dunk-tank-alternative game called “Pitchburst” into the rental and party/event market.? Based on our own experience and early live-event success with the game, we fabricated 100 of them out of wood and launched them at trade shows.? Our “Uh-Oh” moment came when customers called to complain their games had broken.? The first 60 games we sold all broke down within the first ten uses/rentals.? We failed, resulting in two years of big losses, because we based our manufacturing choice on faulty assumptions.? We’d built our launch on faulty assumptions. The wooden structures were not sufficiently durable and not fit for purpose.? (We later pivoted and re-engineered Pitchburst out of steel and more durable materials; it’s still being sold today.)

?Think & Apply:

While you’re probably not in the rental or party/event market, you can learn by thinking about (1) How do you know what, in your industry, makes a product or service “fit for purpose?”? (2) How might you ensure that what you produce and sell is, in fact, fit for purpose?

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Observe & Understand:

In the days before smartphone cameras, veteran Pennsylvania skydiver Ivan McGuire was asked by a colleague to film the tandem jump of an instructor and student. McGuire strapped on his 8mm camera outfit and boarded the plane with the pair, as well as other jumpers.? When they reached 10,000 feet Ivan gave a thumbs up and jumped.? He had his camera focused on the tandem when they jumped behind him, then pulled ripcords to open their parachutes. ?Beautiful shot!? But then McGuire reached for his own rip cord, which should have been on his right hip.? Uh-Oh! Tragically, the parachute wasn’t there, he’d forgotten it! – a likely result of distraction and/or inattention. As he plunged to his death, the camera (which survived) caught his final words, “Oh my God no!” ?Later reports suggested that McGuire likely confused the bulky, strapped-on camera setup with his parachute. ??

Think & Apply:

To find relevant lessons from this tragedy for your business, consider: (1) What one key business step or thing, if forgotten only once, can lead to disaster??? (2) How do we ensure to never forget it?? (3) Where or when else might you or others in your company become dangerously distracted?

Where do you find blunders like these to analyze then process to benefit your business?? They’re in daily life, media, newsfeeds, books, blogs and podcasts.? You just have to add an “Uh-Oh!” lens to your thinking to be sensitized and find them, then apply the “observe & understand” and “think & apply” steps to find and act on the relevant learnings.

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Other places to look for examples of others’ blameworthy goofs and unintentional mistakes that can inspire your good-proofing thinking?

·???????? Online product and service reviews (your own, your competitors, and companies in unrleated industries).?? Skip the 5-stars and check out the 1- and 2-star negative write-ups.? Many are routine complaints, but occasionally you’ll come across commentary that reveals someone blundered on the seller end.

·???????? Online portals that capture and analyze failures like Failory, Museum of Failure, or (ignore the vulgarity, it’s a great resource) FuckupNights.

·???????? My own book, UH-OH! Avoid Unintended Blunders that Derail Entrepreneurial Success and Goof-Proof Your Business, includes 20 UH-OH! blunder examples (including those mentioned here) and 10 do-it-yourself tools you can use to help avoid making your own, will be available February 11, 2025.? Pre-order it here.