What price a mistake

Isn't it easy to have high expectations of others? When I come to work each day I expect those around me to be making good decisions and carrying out their procedural work accurately and efficiently. We have various meetings to review progress and adherence to key performance indicators - some meetings even permit acknowledgement of failure or shortcomings. But this is relatively rare: we do not welcome mistakes or poor judgment in the first place - what self-respecting company would? We are not ruthless on the transgressor. They don't automatically get sacked or disciplined - and actually, sometimes (probably wrongly), the failure gets brushed under the carpet. It would be flattering of us to say we always gently learn from our mistakes (we don't always).

But, it is true to say there is no circumstance when we actually celebrate a mistake as a raw but valuable lesson within our business life or on an individual's career path.

My wife and I have been blessed with three children, and all too often (they tell me) I have tried to steer them with pearls of wisdom from my own experience - albeit an experience gained as a youth many years ago now, in a world that was unrecognisable from the one mine grow up in today. Now they are teenagers in their twenties, it takes real restraint to allow them to follow a course of action that might seem to me destined to end in tears. And yet, generally, we do give them this freedom. We are conscious that not to do so would suppress their remaining growth and preparation for later life. Controlling them so much as to stifle their decision making would be wholly at odds with our ambition to let them flourish in a way that allows them to feel valued and loved for their individuality, and to be mature and independent.