Career · FORTUNE
Fortune #33
Mixed — reflect carefully
When you find an error, report known impact, remaining uncertainty, and the immediate fix. Openness gives the team time to reduce harm.
QUOTE CARD
A quote for you
“สิ่งหนึ่งที่แน่นอนในโลกธุรกิจ คือ คุณและทุกคนรอบตัวคุณจะต้องทำผิดพลาด”
— ริชาร์ด แบรนสัน
ผู้ก่อตั้ง Virgin Group และผู้ประกอบการชาวอังกฤษ
- Person
- Richard Branson
- Source work
- From Richard Branson's blog ‘Learning from mistakes’ on the Virgin Website
- Source text
- One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.
STORY & REFLECTION
An error reported before someone else found it
Guidance-based illustration · An error reported before someone else found it
Illustrative scene: A worker notices that a spreadsheet sent that morning contains a wrong total. They nearly replace the file quietly out of fear of blame, but recipients may already be using it.
They tell recipients which row is wrong, send a marked correction, and ask the team to inspect the failed step. Speed of disclosure matters more than appearing error-free.
Google SRE describes blameless postmortems built around facts rather than a scapegoat. Recording impact, sequence, and prevention helps a team learn from failure.
Accountability means informing those affected in time and using the error to close a risk for next round.
Reflection
Prompt, clear correction beats concealment.
A small action today
Report impact, fix, and prevention plan.
A question to reflect on
Who needs to know about this mistake in order to help correct it?