Mackay: Mistakes can be essential in learning how to succeed

In the book "The World According to Mr. Rogers," the late children's television star Fred Rogers passed along the following story about the value of making mistakes.

An apprentice carpenter applied for a position with a master carpenter. During the interview process, the master became very aware of the young worker's pride — everything he'd done was perfect.

Finally, the master carpenter asked the apprentice if he had ever made a mistake, to which the young man proudly said no.

The confident young man thought the job was his. However, to his surprise, the master carpenter said he would not be hiring the skillful apprentice. The reason: That when he did make a mistake, he would have no idea how to fix it.

I completely agree with that hiring decision. It's OK to make mistakes, but you have to learn from them. If you just keep making the same mistakes, one of two things is happening: You are not paying attention, or you just don't care.

Thomas Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, said of mistakes: "You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it." The person who makes a mistake and then makes an excuse for it is actually making two mistakes. People respect those who take responsibility for their own errors.

If you seize the opportunity to learn what went wrong, you'll be a lot less likely to make the same mistake again. To paraphrase the words of our favorite baseball philosopher Yogi Berra, "Don't make the wrong mistakes."

Managers have a specific role in dealing with staff mistakes. You want your staff to make as few mistakes as possible. But workers do need to know when they make mistakes so that they can learn and grow in the workplace.

As a manager, you need to think about the problem and assess how important the mistake is. If the mistake was made out of lack of awareness, let the person know what has happened, and explore whether he or she knows how to prevent it in the future. If the mistake was made out of carelessness, then talk to your employee. Find out if something is distracting him or her. If the employee is feeling overworked, see if you can provide some help.

When an employee fails, you share the blame, just as you share the credit for your workers' successes. Make sure that you don't abdicate your responsibility.

Mackay's Moral: If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense making them.