#38 Definitely Wrong: How Fear of Mistakes Makes Us Worse at Our Jobs

Hi everyone!

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “being wrong” for a while and have finally written the article that I’ve been meaning to write about it. If you want to skip the backstory, and just read the article – here’s the link.

But if you’re interested in what triggered this, we need to go back a few years …

The backstory:

Several years ago my boss got me on a call to somewhat sheepishly inform me that despite my strong (extremely well argued if I may say so myself) support for a particular approach, she had decided to go another way.

I said “huh, well, okay.”

And she said “wow – I did not think you were going to take it that well! I was dreading telling you!”

Which was when I realised I needed to do more work to make sure I wasn’t one of those people. You know the type, the know-it-all. The person with answers for everything. The person who always has to be right.

By this point in my career I had realised that being right wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, and I knew chasing right wasn’t the right (hah) way to tackle things, but apparently I was still acting like it was. And even worse, people – my boss – thought I was opinionated. Dammmmnnnnnn.

My partner often complains that I use the word “opinionated” wrong. In the dictionary definition, opinionated is not simply a person “has opinions” (something I am very guilty of!), but is instead someone who is “obstinate or conceited with regard to the merit of one’s own opinions” (something I very much don’t want to be guilty of).

Having opinions is great – you should have them! In fact I’d argue that you should have many well formed and researched opinions on all sorts of things! Have thousands! But, don’t be obstinate or conceited about them – they should be just your current theory on stuff and should be open to change based on new data.

A fact that is as true at work as it is in life!

Which is why this interaction with my boss – where it was clear that she considered me opinionated – triggered a fair amount of self-reflection.

I’ll admit it: I sort of love being right. Always have. I especially like feeling vindicated when the occasion arises. And as much as I love being right, I hate being wrong to the same degree. And yet, being wrong is a fact of life. Doing anything exciting / new / innovative takes risk.

Risk that you’re wrong.

So, over the years I’ve been trying to embrace being wrong more gracefully than my genes and my temperament naturally want me to be (which, if we’re honest, is pretty ungraceful).

I’ve made progress, some deliberate, some accidental. And along the way I’ve realised just how backwards our thinking is when it comes to being wrong.

That’s what this article is all about.

Because what if being wrong wasn’t wrong, but actually it is how to be right more often.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this (or anything else), so do reply to this email, DM me on LinkedIn, or send me a letter via pigeon. 

I cannot tell you how much I like hearing from y'all!

And until next time, stay excellent! 💖
Hannah

PS: Yes, I shifted my newsletter to beehiiv, not least because you get a sort of archive / landing page of all your posts (which you can browse here). It’s all quite new so please let me know if you have any issues or something doesn’t seem right.