The Person Who Never Made a Mistake

Ok let’s face it we are all human and sometimes we make mistakes.  The person who never made a mistake never made anything and you don’t want them around.

The important thing is to admit you “stuffed up”, sort out why you did and fix it.  Be open and honest and don’t blame.

A very few scientists in the IPCC stuffed up, and tried to hide it.  Well that is plain stupid. An error is excusable – the lie is not.  It was found out when some emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the U.K.

The flow on from this has been ammunition for the climate change skeptics.  Pity about that because the science of climate change is strong and we need to all start doing something practical about it.

The mistake of exaggerating to make the case stronger has actually had the opposite effect as skeptics and ultra conservatives ignor the bulk of evidence and confuse the politics.

There is no doubt regarding the following key points:
The global climate is changing.
Human activities produce heat-trapping gases.
Heat-trapping gases are very likely responsible for most of the warming observed over the past half century.
The higher the levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the higher the risk of potentially dangerous consequences for humans and our environment.

The national academies of science of 32 nations, and every major scientific organization in the United States whose members include climate experts, have issued statements endorsing these points.

You must have been reading the news reports describing the stolen e-mails from climate scientists and the errors in the IPCC reports.  Some aspects of climate change impacts have been overstated, but this does not undermine the conclusions that humans have taken over from nature as the dominant influence on our climate.

So why am I talking about this?

Do you know what happens in your business when a mistake happens?  Does it get reported and sorted out?  Or does it get covered up, ignored and repeated again and again.

Are your staff wasting time and money as mistakes get ignored and covered up but the errors go out the door, goods need reworking and your customers get upset.

You will discover that the really big benefit of having an ISO management system in your business is a simple and effective feedback system plus a culture of admitting mistakes and sorting out how to prevent them.

It does not matter whether you are doing ISO 14001 or ISO 9001, when you build a management system; you build a feedback system and culture of admitting and correcting mistakes.

I know some of you worry that this will increase your red tape but this idea is wrong!

I keep it really simple and use communication forms instead of non-conformance or corrective action forms.

I discovered that more people use them when they have a “friendlier” name.  A fisherman sorted me out on that one around twelve years ago when he asked “what the **** is a non conformance form”.  I have called them communication forms and found that really works, ever since.

For more information on how I can help you reduce mistakes and change the culture in your business, go to www.enviroaction.com.au

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

Tweet This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 1:11 am and is filed under Global Warming, Climate Change & Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.