The Value of a Mistake

     Have you made a mistake lately?  What did you do with that?  Did you hide it, or were you forthcoming and go to your boss and say, hey, I made a mistake, and it cost us X amount of dollars.  If you hide it, how much do you think that cost is?  The cost is horrendous, not only in time, but possibly in your integrity. How about your personal character?  Lots of cost there.  Last I checked we are all human, with the propensity to make mistakes and fall very short of doing everything right. But, I haven’t met a mistake yet, that I haven’t learned a great deal from.

     Mistakes are learning opportunities for all of us.  Yes, we make mistakes, and yes, we correct mistakes all the time.  When you make a mistake, as a leader it is important to own up to it and learn from it. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring the possibility of creating an even larger error. 

     Who has needed a property manager and there wasn’t anyone really qualified to hire? Or their personality wasn’t quite right for the existing team onsite. If you hire someone that doesn’t fit or isn’t qualified, you run the risk of setting them up for failure and worse, having to let them go and find another to take their place.  Again, it’s the cost of making the mistake of hiring the wrong person.

     When you learn from a mistake and admit to making it to your boss, your colleagues, your friends, you do several things, you show your humanness, you also add to your integrity by telling the truth of the matter.  You add to your value by turning a wrong into a right. You bring clarity to your intentions of doing the best job you can. This adds to your character and shows your peers you can be trusted and that my friends is invaluable and something you can’t buy at WalMart.

     I have made many mistakes through the years and I try very hard to correct them immediately. As Jim Baumgartner, Sr. VP of RentSoda shares in his blog Facing Failure, coming clean to your boss would allow for constructive dialogue and open communication. I stressed over making the mistake and then I stressed over having to tell my boss. Honestly, is there anything worse? But my boss would show me how I could correct the error, right away, and there wasn’t any loss.  It is important as leaders that we remember that everyone makes mistakes; it is how we respond to making them and how we embrace an opportunity to teach and to understand how to prevent them from occurring in the first place. 

     Mistakes do matter and what matters more is creating a culture where we can be cooperative, reaching out to make it right, correct the error, apologizing if necessary and moving on to a place of growth and further understanding.  We are all human, we all can make a mistake, it’s what we do after, and that counts.

        Make mistakes, but learn from them, cooperation and teamwork with your onsite staff will help correct them. Be informative and transparent with your clients and owners and your integrity will speak volumes when you have to reveal an error or mistake, always be clear with your intentions. Keep communicating and continue to create community.

Alison Voyvodich is Director of Communications of WRH Realty Services, Inc. Extensive Experience and a Client-focused Philosophy offering Property Management, Real Estate Consulting, Construction Management, Real Estate Investment, and Mortgage Banking.

WRH Realty Services, Inc. | Avoyvodich@wrhrealty.com