Reflections on Mistakes

Oh it seems to me, that sorry seems to be the hardest word. Elton John

It is inevitable that you and I will make many mistakes in our lifetime. Yet while we all acknowledge that no one is infallible, we still have a difficult time admitting that we made a mistake when it happens.

In the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson attempt to determine why people resist taking responsibility when they make a mistake. One of their conclusions is that people are not good at admitting fault when they do something that is counter to their own self-concept, that is, how we personally think of ourselves. (Perhaps it's not all that amazing that everyone thinks pretty highly of themselves too. According to a July 2018 survey by PLoS ONE, 65% of Americans believed that they are smarter than average and 2010 survey by ELLE magazine found that most of us consider ourselves a "6 or 7" on a 10-point attractiveness scale. C'mon people! If we were all "better than average" then that "better" would become the average)!

Tavris and Aronson speculate that when we make a boo-boo, we experience "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling you get inside when you just did something that was pretty darn dumb. Now when that happens, humans will try to figure out a way to deal with the contradiction - I'm smart (and smarter than average) so how'd I do something so stupid? According to Mistakes, we deal with this problem one of two ways: we modify our self-concept or we change the narrative - what happened didn't really happen or we weren't at fault because someone or something else was. Guess which alternative is the road taken by most people?

A personal example of cognitive dissonance goes like this. I'm a very polite and kind person. Yet in my rush to get in and out of the bank, I cut in front of a little old man who is slowly wobbling his way toward a store next to the bank branch. Heck, I practically vaulted the guy because he was in my way - I all but knocked him down! But because that doesn't jibe with my own self-concept of Mr. Nice Guy, I deal with the cognitive dissonance by denying that the event even happened. Come to think about it, I probably didn't come that close to the old guy. In fact, I think the gentleman stumbled not because of me but because of that broken sidewalk. The city needs to do something about that!

Or we could just apologize when we do wrong. While some studies have shown that people who don't apologize for their actions have greater self-esteem, such denial comes at a high price. You might feel better about yourself refusing to admit you are wrong, but others might see you as having a weakness of character. Being honest and humble actually make you more human and as the Bible says, we should look to find strength in our own weakness.

This leads me to my one-man crusade for society to recognize the value of character. We've reached a momentous point in time where it seems that character doesn't matter anymore. The evil we do seems to be easily shrugged off and no one seems to notice otherwise. We don't have to settle our painful cognitive dissonance because we're convinced that our behavior is not inappropriate. Not only are we not wrong, we can muddy those character waters by insisting that others do things way worse than what we do. Our character, or lack thereof, doesn't matter because other people's character doesn't matter either. No matter what happened, everyone else does far worse things. Besides, I'm still smarter than average (and better looking too)!

We see the diminishment of character everywhere: politics, entertainment, schools, business, and our personal lives. As I pointed out in an earlier article, hiring companies give short shrift to candidates' character. All they seem to want to know is whether the candidate has direct experience in THIS very job, whether you were successful when you did it (can't really verify this so there's temptation to say just about anything), and can you do it well here without any ramp time? (And if you are in sales, can you bring business with you immediately)? Does anyone even try to determine integrity? Can a job candidate actually be honest and still get hired? Have no fear dear job seeking reader - no one will ask about your veracity because no one cares. All that matters is that you can deliver.

Many years ago, I was a sales director leading multiple sales teams. One team had an empty saddle and I was interviewing sales rep candidates. One woman came in and she was very qualified - in fact she was a top producer at one of our competitors. Amazingly, she was honest about a significant blotch on her record - she had pled guilty to a felony. Wow. She explained that once upon a time she had been abandoned by her husband and had unexpectedly become a single mom. At this point, she became very afraid - she had an incomplete education, few prospects, rent to pay, and hungry kids to feed. At this point, she made a mistake - she received more governmental assistance than she was supposed to get. It was not a windfall mind you, but more than she was due and she did not report the error. Later, she got caught. After prosecution, she had put herself through school, successfully raised her kids, and pulled herself up by her own bootstraps. Now she was not only a productive member of society, she was a rousing success! This woman just demonstrated tremendous character, yet I didn't hire her because I didn't want to do battle over the felony conviction with my company's HR and our corporate policy.

Part of my self-concept is that I see myself as a thoughtful person and an insightful leader. But if the lady I described above is reading this article I have something I want to tell her -

I'm sorry. I was wrong.