DailyPost 499
MISTAKE: AN ANATHEMA
India is a country, may be you would be hearing sorry, the least number of times. Might be making mistakes we abhor across cultures in this country. It’s demeaning to accept mistakes. From the personal to the business enterprise, most of the engagements, don’t show any costing, on account of mistakes. The reality is mistakes are the spine of today’s path breaking enterprises. Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook’s journey of 14 years says he committed all mistakes we can imagine of. He runs world’s 1 media company with two billion users.
Is our approach to mistakes antithetical to our progress? Does it create insurmountable blocks in our heart & mind? The mistake is not a dead end, it’s increases your resolve to surge ahead till you find the goal post. Who knows the journey at its start. Presumptions are presumptions, who can guarantee it’s success. The approach of how you face mistakes; students, entrepreneurs, businesses & researchers of all types defines the nature and vibrancy of business and high end research establishments.
In the normal IT project interactions with the vendors, they promise the imaginary one shot success. From where & how this concept has emanated is unknown. Corrections are not taken kindly by the IT vendors & then they get into doing, what they do best. To prove the customer wrong. From the given requirements to RFP to DPR; anything can be wrong but for the vendor. Declaring mistakes seems to be tantamount to crime.
Mistakes are a way of life & if not deliberately committed is the only way to a validated learning. Same mistakes cannot be repeated. Crime & punishment approach is self defeating. Because of this approach not that the mistakes don’t happen, they do, we learn the art of hushing it up. This brings in a huge dose of negativity in our existence. On the face of it, we keep soft peddling positivity, optimism & success. Life cannot become any more paradoxical. Parents, teachers & employers share the same anti-mistake mindset.
ANTI-MISTAKE MINDSET SUBSERVES MEDIOCRITY.
Sanjay Sahay