Russell Bell: Learn from mistakes to avoid repeat

In the pantheon of risk management theory, there is surely room for the discipline of identifying and mitigating risks that are just downright clumsy.
We all will have done things at home or at work that we look back on with hindsight and say: "Gee, that was not ideal."
Then we pay the price of wasted time and resources caused by our error.
Such waste could happen immediately or raise itself in the future.
The consequences of an event that happened two weekends ago crystallised on Tuesday of this week, rendering an entire afternoon redundant and causing cancellation of a workshop.
John Bartley at Stihl shop will tell all his customers that, when working with the tools he offers to the market, protective clothing and eyewear are essential.
I like to think that from time to time I demonstrate compliance with his sage advice. But two weeks ago I determined that such safety gear was for mere mortals and that I would forgo such necessities and wield the weed-eater with abandon.
I should have realised, when I almost ripped off a fingernail in my attempts to start the thing, that danger lay ahead. But I continued the endeavour regardless.
So, with the volume turned up on the Foo Fighters new album (instead of earmuffs) and minus safety glasses, I began my quest. About halfway around, a volley of bark, dirt and grass sprayed my face. If there was a "blinking marathon" event at the Olympics, I'd certainly have been a contender and after a while I rinsed my eyes and returned to the task.
Ten days later I awoke with a pain in my eye which was most unpleasant and, after two consults with the GP, I spent Wednesday afternoon acquainting myself with the hospital's outstanding ophthalmology department and its waiting area (note to self, always take a magazine).
The lesson here is that if I had executed the "weed-eating" processes properly and used safety glasses, I would not have had the issue and would have been far more productive. This event created significant time waste for my business days into the future.
Mistakes are common and happen because we are human. The right thing to do is acknowledge it, learn from it and work out procedures to ensure it doesn't happen again. Mistakes shouldn't be ignored, because individuals and organisations do not learn if there is not a process in place to capture and deal with mistakes in the right way.
While mistakes do cause waste in organisations, not acting on them creates exponentially more problems than the initial incident incurs.
An extension of this thinking is risk management, where you anticipate things that might go wrong and set in place controls to mitigate these. I am sure that Mrs Bell will engage risk-management procedures to monitor my execution of all future gardening tasks.
In any case, after all that I went through this week, do you think that this weekend I will "weed eat" without safety glasses? I will probably use earmuffs too!
If you want to better understand the risks facing your business or write a strategic plan, phone Zenith Solutions, Wanganui's specialist business consultancy, on 021-244-2421.