Hack:
Mistake of the Month
Every employee is encouraged to record his/her biggest mistake each month in a folder on the company intranet. The cutoff date is the 25th of the month. A committee of three persons [selected by the employees] reviews the folder’s contents, and vote for the most glaring/rip roaring/awful mistake.
The owner of the mistake is greeted by a red carpet leading to his/her place of work on the 1st working day of the month, when he/she turns up in the morning. Then a bunch of colleagues and the review committee members serenade the owner of the mistake with a cake or two tickets for dinner, a show, whatever – the committee tries to find out what the person enjoys, and tailors the gift accordingly. The actual mistake is briefly described at the time of felicitation, and then published in the company newsletter.
In about four years, the organization had attracted the likes of CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. to set up shop. It was a huge success, so I jokingly suggested that they graduate from having mistake of the month to folly of the fortnight postings!
Hi Sam:
This is great.
Can you expand a little bit more on: people realized that management walked its talk.
I would think employees might be hesitant to admit mistakes.
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Great agenda item for monthly departmental meetings, with a direct peer vote on the best mistake of the month with a Dinner or Cinema ticket for 2 as direct reward. Will create lots of energy and discussion, and creative learning....
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Great process.
Reminds me of one of the characteristics of "high reliability organisations" in Karl Weick's work. In these organisations, too, admitting a mistake is rewarded so that mistakes are known about.
The impact comes from analysing the mistakes and spreading the learning from the analysis through the organisation.
-- Bob
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Hello Sam,
Great hack. Actually plucky, for you plucked it out of thin air, sowed it and watered it till it took root.
At first I thought it may help to keep an employee wise database of mistakes, accessible by the superiors. They could add any left out by the employee. The employee is free to decide his entry for the competition. Then I felt it may vitiate a good thing with a direct dose of seriousness.
However, it may be worthwhile to have a parallel competition for near misses where mistakes were made but saved by the team. I particularly like this for mistakes do at times open up opportunities. Besides, it would definitely play up the power of the team and the importance of sharing..
Wishing you progress,
Raj Kumar
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