Tech Manager—Correcting Yourself
Last time I covered how to give constructive correctives to others when done with kindness, encouragement, and tack. But what if you are the one who needs correcting? You hopefully may see it before others do or before a mistake is made? How do you catch yourself drifting, going off track or slipping? Some alarms and warnings might help.
Lane drift
I am the kind of guy who buys a car and keeps it for a very long time. I currently have a 2005 pickup, a 2012 SUV and a 2014 Hybrid that I use for commuting. All of them are now over 10 years old and the truck is almost 20 years old. I bring all that up to say that I do not have the latest bells or whistles that come with new cars. And I do not have the alarms and warning systems that come of the new models.
When I rent newer model cars, they have the warning lights or sounds that tell me when I am drifting out of my lane. Some jiggle the steering wheel while others beep. When I first drove a car with some of these warnings, it caught me by surprise. Now it is commonplace. So how can use the concept of alarms when I drift off the plan or process? Like drifting in the water at the seashore, you may not know you are drifting until your look around and notice that you are far out to sea, or down the coast away from where you started.
First set some alarms. Like milestone checkpoints. Add to the plan a period of reassessing where you are. Put it on the calendar and pause to look around. Have someone else check your progress. Break down the work to manageable chunks and have review times built in. If you are supposed to finish 10 items by Friday and you only get 8 done, check yourself and see what is causing the slowdown. Adjust before you fall even further behind… or set a more realistic target number.
Blind spots
New cars also help with things you may not notice in your blind spots. When a car approaches in your blind spot, a light comes on. When you start moving toward something in the blind spot, a warning beeps… Look out!
In life and work, your blind spots may be seen by others, but you will miss them. This is beyond a drift; it is totally unseen. New alarms need to be in place for this. You need to be more proactive on blind spots. You need to ask others what they see and what you do not see. Tell them to be honest. If something was missed, or if you did not take advice from others, have them say so. Ask them for help. Make yourself vulnerable. You need others to help when they see what you are unable to see. We all have blind spots and need them to be uncovered.
Delayed actions
I have a one-minute email delay. When I compose and send an email, I have an Outlook rule that pauses for sixty seconds on a send. It sits in my Outbox and waits for the clock to tick off, then it sends it. This has saved me a few times from sending an email addressing an issue that was already done. It has saved me from being too abrupt in my wording. It has given me time to rethink what I wanted to say. Maybe I forgot the attachment… It gives me time to catch my own mistakes.
By taking a pause when working from time to time, you can rethink things and avoid mistakes. Give yourself some time to think. You want to move at fleet speeds, but not so fast that your brain has not had time to think through the outcome of your actions.
Admitting mistakes
When you catch a mistake – own it. Mistakes are made all time. No one is perfect. When you do uncover something that needs to be corrected, you should admit it to yourself and others. Don’t brush past them. Don’t try to write them off. Just admit when you are wrong. It may take some courage. Decisions that seemed good at the time can go wrong. Don’t continue that wrong decision by hanging on to it when it becomes apparent. Once addressed, you can move toward a corrective. Get input from others as needed and point yourself in the right direction.
Don’t overcorrect
When setting up boundaries to catch things that might need correcting, don’t overly nit-pick yourself. Trust what you have chosen, decided and planned. Move boldly in getting things done. Be aware of when you might veer off the path, but don’t nag yourself about all the time about getting it right. If you have done your homework and know what needs to happen, then move forward with confidence.
If you notice something that needs to be corrected and it has multiple options for the correction, do not make multiple changes all at once. Make each change stand-alone so that you can tell if the adjustment made an improvement or not. Basically, don’t make too many changes at once, you may never figure out which change was the one that worked.
Correcting yourself
We all need to be willing to be corrected by others and to learn how to correct ourselves. If you get better at correcting yourself, you may reduce the comments that come from others. You also need to know that correctives make for better outcomes. They make you smarter and stronger. Embrace them, whether they come from your internal voice or the voices of others.
