There’s Nothing Courageous About Being Honest About Mistakes
Posted by Davy Brion on January 9th, 2010
Michel Grootjans recently left the following comment on a post where i discussed a really stupid mistake i made:
Been there, done that, but never had the courage to post it.
That got me thinking. What exactly is courageous about being honest about a mistake you made? I mean, everybody makes mistakes and nobody is an exception to that. Why do so many people try to hide this fact?
I used to work at a large financial institution where a lot of the people weren’t very honest about mistakes they made. When things went wrong, a lot of them came up with excuses or denied outright that they had made a mistake and blamed it one someone else or on some other event. That’s one of the worst things you can do if you ask me. For one, it reduces your credibility and people will be less likely to trust whatever it is you say once they realize that you’re not entirely honest about such things.
One of the biggest mistakes that i made there led to learning one of my most cherished lessons. I once accidentally truncated 4 large tables in a production database. It was very early in the morning and parts of my brain must’ve still been sleeping. I knew that the database operations guys were going to spend a lot of time on trying to fix things, and that it would be a very unpleasant situation for me. When i called them, i just told them outright that i had made a really stupid mistake and that i needed their help. It was pretty obvious that they weren’t used to someone actually telling them that and to my surprise, they were very cool about it. They restored the 4 tables rather quickly and the whole situation was resolved without too many problems. I told my superior about what had happened and that it was my own stupid fault that the application was down for a few hours. He too took that rather well. From that point on, i’ve made it a habit to just be entirely honest about every mistake or screw up that i’d make.
For one, why on earth should i worry about what people will think of me because i made a stupid mistake? Like i said, everyone makes mistakes and as long as you don’t make too many of them too frequently, there is nothing wrong with it. And anyone who will think differently of you because of it is really just a hypocrite. In fact, most people will respect you more if you are just honest and open about it.
As for writing posts about them… there are a few reasons why i do that. First of all, by writing about them you are more likely to remember the mistake and you’ll hopefully won’t make it again. Secondly, it’s typically an interesting opportunity for others to learn from as well. Last but not least, by posting honestly about them i can hopefully show people that there really isn’t anything wrong with being honest about it and who knows, maybe even encourage them to do the same in the future when it happens to them.
But is it courageous? I don’t think so… If a certain action doesn’t justify any fear, then there’s no reason to consider doing so courageous either.
Oh, and if you want to read up on more of my mistakes, check out the following posts:
- My 2 most cherished mistakes
- How a simple foreach statement can waste an afternoon
- Do not dispose in the prerender event
- The importance of releasing your components through Windsor
Come to think of it, there should be plenty more of those… guess i gotta start posting about them more often 
January 10th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Great post. I like reading these non-technical posts related to software development.
I hope not many people work in a company where you cannot tell the truth. If so, it’s time to look for another job
January 10th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Davy,
I can only agree with that. It’s only by doing, and inevitably making mistakes but admitting and accepting them, you really learn and build up expierence.
That being said, I took a look at your 4 “example mistakes”, and commented on the Active Directory problem
January 10th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
“It’s only by doing, and inevitably making mistakes but admitting and accepting them, you really learn and build up expierence.”
exactly, mistakes are only a problem if you don’t learn from them
January 12th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Although I agree with you that one should not hide his/her mistakes and be responsible for them specially where there can be severe consequences but It doesn’t mean that your colleagues and superiors should act cool when they find out what you’ve done.I mean we should take responsibility for our mistakes whether other people support us or not .
January 20th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Davy,
Nice post.
As my mon used to advise us: “Lies have small legs”. One day someone will find the truth and you´ll be in hot water. So, just follow my mon´s advice and you´ll be good.
March 7th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I did learn that lesson a long time ago and continue to be just honest about my mistakes. The same is true about not knowing something. The sooner I admit I don’t know something, the sooner that situation changes.
My initial real mistake happened in the mid 1980’s at my first job developing medical recording systems for the IBM system 34 in RPG/II. They used disk packs which are magazines loaded with around 5 8” diskettes. Early in the morning I decided to backup the current version before I attempted my first, albeit, minor, change current version changes. I walked to the 34, plugged in the pack and pressed load button, confidently located next to where the pack was inserted. Well, the “load” button is actually the same as pressing the reset on a modern server. Developers, lost about 2 hours work each. Power failures had happened and it did cross my mind to just let everyone make up their own mind about what had happened. Instead I decided to tell them what happened. We all had a good laugh about it, and we moved on.
This initial pattern, admitting things, has served me well for most of my career. There was a glaring exception and it is the only exception. Like the environment you noted my superiors and co-workers at my last corporate job made a habit of blaming or just hiding things. Every other time I ran into this culture I’ve discovered staying true to honesty, and not making a point of the dishonesty of others, not only made me feel ok, it had the effect of encouraging the same. This time was different and another important lesson if a somewhat late one. One of my superiors was a very talented, but troubled individual. He really did not want me there and made a point of using every opportunity, including my confessed short comings, to see me go. The lessons here: Don’t assume others will understand your actions and sometimes the only real answer to a bad situation is “Good Bye”.
KES