What is the cost of your mistake?

It was 29^th June and when I got up in the morning, I reminded myself more than couple of times that, unlike the last month, I was not going to forget what I had to do.  It was an important action item to do and needed to be done before end of the day.

It was a busy day with reviews, meetings and interviews and by the time, I could complete my work, it was well past the late evening. I started from office and reached office after an hour of driving in chaotic traffic. With less energy left, I had my dinner and took a nap. What I again forgot was the action item that I wanted to do before end of the day. I’ve successfully repeated my mistake again.

I had to pay a penalty of Rs.500.

Are you wondering what that action item was?

It was my credit card payment and since I did not pay on time, I had to pay it with a penalty. 

Seeing how organized I was, my wife opted for auto-deduction in the bank’s website.  However, I did not register this information.  Yes, the next month, I paid the credit on time without delay just to realize that the credit was once again auto-deducted from in the later part of the day from my account. So I had to write to the bank asking them to return the money which they did after couple of follow-ups.  I am not sure what could have happened if I did not write to them.

In the above example, its very clear to know the cost of my mistake and I am sure you could relate to it or probably you would have come across similar kind of situations yourself.

Even at Workplace, we may make many mistakes with or without our knowledge and it does come with a cost, sometimes small and sometimes Big.

I thought of listing down some of such mistakes we commit and the cost it carries.

# When you are an authoritarian boss with less or no people care, you show results. But the results come at cost of people’s demotivation, burn-out and leaving the organization.  The best employees leave the worst bosses.

# When you repeatedly break your deadlines, you may get extension on your work, not on your credibility. Your credibility as an employee is lost.

# When you take unplanned leave repeatedly especially when there is an important task, your credibility is lost.

# When you take sides and show subjectivity in your decisions, your credibility as a leader is lost.

# When you micro-manage your team members, empowerment is loss in addition to motivation, creativity and out of the box thinking. 

# If you don’t follow the rules and you are not ethical, it can go on as long as it is not found. The day it’s found will be your last day in the organization.

# If we are not honest in our relationships, employees will see us through in the long-term, and the stake that you pay for being dishonest is credibility and relationship.

# If you don’t recognize your people, the result shown now will not be repeated because the employees will be demotivated.

# If you steal your team members credit, you will lose your credibility as a leader in addition to your team’s demotivation.

# When you don’t respect or follow the laws, what is at stake is your brand image.

How we cannot give any excuse to late payment and when we default, we need to bear the penalty, every mistake has a cost and even if we were to do it without our knowledge, we are responsible to bear the cost for it.   Habitual late payment will affect your credit history. Habitual mistakes, Willful or not, will kill your credibility.

Those who violate the traffic rules don’t necessarily like fatal accidents. Some do end up meeting with one. So mistake and the cost are two sides of the coin.  When you make a mistake, you are going to be accountable for its cost – all consequences.  It does not matter whether you would like it or not.

So next time, when you are about to make a mistake, do double check if you are really prepared to pay the cost for it.  It can probably act as a deterrence to not make such mistakes.

Remember, every mistake has a cost, SMALL and Big and they can spell a disaster.

diD yOU enJOY ReADinG ThIS ArTIcLE? 

                                  If yES, 

yOU maY sHAre it wiTH Your FriENds tOO