Pulling on a door that says, "PUSH"

The other day, I was the person in Gary Larson's cartoon. Leaving a building, I found myself pulling on a door that clearly said, "PUSH." It wasn't enough for me to pull on the door once, but I pulled THREE times expecting it to open! After the third pull, Einstein's definition of insanity crept into my head:

Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I stopped the insanity and pushed the door open. I sheepishly glanced around to see if anyone saw my mistake. I noticed a few people smirking. "Oh well", I thought. "Suck it up buttercup and pay attention next time." As I was walking away, I took the opportunity to reflect inward on the dynamics of what just happened.

As humans, we are going to make mistakes, but the real question is, "How do you handle yourself after you make a mistake?" Many times we look over our shoulder and hope no one saw us. When errors occur without an incident or accident (no matter how small or seemingly idiotic), we call them "leading indicators." This is valuable information to capture from employees. 

What is most personal, is most common

Employees are not unique to making mistakes. The real issue is this; how often is the same mistake being made, but no one is talking about it? Getting to the bottom of that question means reflecting inward on how you handle yourself AFTER you've made a mistake. The natural human reaction is to look over our shoulder and hope no one saw us. This buries potentially valuable information that might keep someone else from BEING buried. 

The hallmark of high performing organizations is creating a culture where employees feel comfortable coming forward and speaking freely of "leading indicators."  Coming forward means pushing through those feelings of "I feel like an idiot for having done this." On the flip side, if you are the person being confessed to, it is very important to react in such a manner that does not make someone "feel like an idiot" for speaking up.

Metaphorically speaking, we all have pushed on a door that said pull and hoped no one saw us. Growing as a Target Leader means personally pushing through feelings of inadequacy, and sharing mistakes in hopes of helping others prevent future mistakes.