Well, maybe not 80%, but it’ll help you avoid a lot more of them.
If you follow me on twitter you may have seen me tweet this last week:
Handed out books for my #KidMin team to read together only to find out that they already read it with another leader. Doh! #leadershipfail
I hate it when I make stupid mistakes like this. Now I’ve got a bunch of copies of Forgotten God that I don’t need (hey, maybe I’ll do a giveaway on the blog next Tuesday), I spent money that I didn’t need to, and felt a little foolish in front of my team. It’s certainly not the worst mistake I’ve ever made, but it all could have easily been avoided if I had just asked a few simple questions.
I think that’s why we fail more than maybe we need to. The secret to avoiding a lot of our mistakes is simply to ask better questions more often. If I had taken the time to ask my team and their former boss (who is my current leader) what they had read together I could have saved myself the time, money, and embarrassment.
Now don’t get me wrong; mistakes are inevitable. As we try new things we’re bound to miss the mark from time to time. That’s normal. That’s just a part of life. But some of our mistakes can be avoided and some of our lessons don’t always need to be learned the hard. If we take make the time to ask better questions more often we’ll still be able to get where need to go, minus some of the heartburn.
Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won’t have time to make them all yourself. -Alfred Sheinwold
What’s a mistake that you’ve made recently and what did you learn from it? Post them in the comment section below.
–Jeff
Jeff McClung 