Identify and Address the Root Causes of Mistakes using LEARN Framework - F03

To all those who have stumbled, learned from failures, and found the courage to try again, this one is for you!

“A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”

B. F. Skinner, Psychologist, behaviorist, author, and social philosopher.

In a world where ‘flawless’ is often the goal, there’s a steadily growing public acknowledgment of the fact that reaching flawlessness isn’t without mistakes.

In this edition, I want to cover 2 aspects

1. Why is it okay to make mistakes?

2. A framework to find the root cause of a mistake and address it

Why is it Okay to Make Mistakes?

In a culture that penalizes mistakes and instills fear of consequences, innovation often takes a back seat. Mistakes are typically seen as failures in our actions, approach, or thinking. Nobody likes to be associated with failure, but failure is an integral part of the journey towards success. Consider various aspects of your life, playing video games, giving presentations, gardening, Excel formulas, shopping, or even driving — mistakes have played a pivotal role in shaping your approach to improvement. Mistakes in our lives have shaped the version of ourselves today.

So, don’t avoid mistakes, embrace them, and learn from them as they upgrade you.

When you hesitate to voice an idea or suggestion because you fear the consequences of it not working out, it’s a clear sign of a lack of psychological safety. It’s an environment that not only hinders innovation but also curiosity and perseverance. If you can be the change agent to start or strengthen a culture of psychological safety, take the first step. It’ll be worth it!

Let’s come back to mistakes. As an exercise, think of someone you admire for their success. This person may be a sports figure, celebrity, family member, friend, or colleague. Now, ponder whether this individual was always successful. The truth is, that success is often preceded by a journey filled with learning experiences, including mistakes.

Michael Jordan famously said “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

There are a lot more popular examples but here’s what is common amongst all of them: mistakes were made BEFORE achieving success.

Learning from mistakes accumulates your proximity to success.

LEARN Framework

I want to introduce you to my LEARN Framework where we Learn and Evolve from Analyzing Root Negatives. It’s a structured approach to find underlying root causes, building a remedial action plan to address them, and getting better. It’s not much different from the approach we take when you investigate a drop in a business KPI so you can improve it. I've only repurposed it to focus on human behavior.

It’s a framework that helps you answer these questions:

1. What went wrong?

2. What is the root cause?

3. What must I do to not make that mistake again?

Prep work

If you are going to use it on yourself, skip to step 1.

If you are a people manager who wants to build a culture of psychological safety for the team, talk about how you want to build a habit of learning from mistakes and your intent to build a process that will aid in identifying the root cause, action plan to address it, coach your team to improve, and propel your team towards a culture of continuous improvement. It prepares your team for a change coming so you don’t encounter ‘Why are we doing this?’ or other variations of resistance in later stages. You must proactively eliminate the guesswork that might follow.

The end objective is increasing your (or your team’s) effectiveness.

Increase in effectiveness = increase in success.

Step 1: Define and acknowledge the mistake

A key principle that has always worked for me is this: “The first step to address a mistake is acknowledging that there was a mistake made”

Clearly define the mistake made and its impact on your task AND a bigger picture. This helps you understand the consequences of the mistake to recognize its significance and impact helps you understand if addressing it needs to be prioritized.

For instance, not knowing how to read a Power BI dashboard and demo it in a presentation may outweigh the importance of an email you forgot to send.

Separately, it's crucial that you make peace with the mistake and take ownership of it early.

Step 2: Find the root cause