As February drew to a close the world was a-chatter about the Oscar ‘fiasco’, ‘epic mistake’ and many other superlatives to describe what turns out to be a simple human error. It transpired that there are always two sets of envelopes for the Oscars and Brian Cullinan was holding one set while Martha Ruiz was in procession of the other set. The envelope for ‘Best Actress’ had been taken from Martha’s set and as Emma Stone left the stage, Brian was tweeting her picture. He was then required to draw and pass on the envelope from his set for Best Picture. He mistakenly picked up the Best Actress envelop, this is not entirely surprising as psychologists have long known about the process of ‘priming’. If I have a discussion with you about washing and then ask you to think of a word to fit S_ _P you are more likely to say SOAP than you are to say SHOP. Despite SHOP probably being a more common word. Brian was probably thinking ‘actress’ and picked the envelope that said actress!
Brian was fired the next day when the mistake came to light, and I find myself wondering if this was appropriate action in light of the failure. It seems to be more a failure of process and being human, rather than negligence or incompetence. When failure is treated in such a way you start to wonder how this affects the company culture? If failure is met with immediate dismissal it hardly encourages others to own up to mistakes. The danger is then that errors are covered up and only come to light when discovered by others, by which time the consequences can be so much worse. Yet such errors are vital to highlight potential weaknesses in the process and to avoid similar problem in the future. It seems to me that they have just fired the person who is the least likely to make a future mistake because of the very painful and public lesson learnt!
What culture exists in your organisation in respect of ‘failure’ or mistakes?
How can you ensure that ‘failure’ is seen as a learning opportunity?
How do you currently deal with your own mistakes?
Brian was fired the next day when the mistake came to light, and I find myself wondering if this was appropriate action in light of the failure. It seems to be more a failure of process and being human, rather than negligence or incompetence. When failure is treated in such a way you start to wonder how this affects the company culture? If failure is met with immediate dismissal it hardly encourages others to own up to mistakes. The danger is then that errors are covered up and only come to light when discovered by others, by which time the consequences can be so much worse. Yet such errors are vital to highlight potential weaknesses in the process and to avoid similar problem in the future. It seems to me that they have just fired the person who is the least likely to make a future mistake because of the very painful and public lesson learnt!
What culture exists in your organisation in respect of ‘failure’ or mistakes?
How can you ensure that ‘failure’ is seen as a learning opportunity?
How do you currently deal with your own mistakes?
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