Posts Tagged ‘perfectionism’

On making mistakes by Pat Iyer

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

I recently heard these two sentences:  From mistakes comes experience. From experience comes wisdom. Burt Durbin

  • This is a startling concept for perfectionists. We spend much of our life trying to avoid making mistakes.
  • This is a startling concept for those passionate about patient safety.  We don’t encourage mistakes. We try to protect patients from the errors in the healthcare system.
  • This is a startling concept for those of us in the medical legal arena. We want to best serve our clients, not make mistakes.

And yet…. if we don’t make mistakes, will we remain dumb (the opposite of wise)? If we don’t learn from our mistakes, will we remain dumb? Some of the most important changes I have made in my business have come from mistakes and the lessons learned. The rigors of being in business present a variety of  arenas for making mistakes, from personnel decisions, people management techniques, to collection practices.  Our fee agreements are good examples of these concepts. They have been modified based on mistakes we’ve made and lessons that we have learned.

To paraphrase the quote: To err is human….to gain wisdom from your mistakes is divine.
Read more about this on Susan Young’s blog.

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