“Error is the fundamental human condition.”
(Kathryn Schultz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
“To be human is to be erratic.”
(Frank Fasano)
“fallor ergo sum” (“I err, therefore I am”)
(Augustine, 300-400 AD)
“Mistakes are a part of life; you can’t avoid them. All
(Lee Iacocca, Iacocca: An Autobiography, 1984)
you can hope is that you don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.”
(Ernest Hemingway)
“I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions on important subjects, which I once thought
(Ben Franklin)
right to be found otherwise.”
“We’re all pretty strange one way or another. ‘Normal’
(Anonymous)
is a dryer setting.”
“I was wrorrrrr — I was not exactly right.”
(The Fonz)
“Ooops, I did it again.”
(Britney Spears, 2000)
“Did you know the word ‘wrong’ is spelled wrong in the dictionary? Because if it was spelled ‘right,’ it would be wrong.”
(Anonymous)
In the course of living our lives, all of us have, from time to time, blundered, slipped up, screwed up, had lapses, yes, made mistakes. Depending on how serious or impactful those mistakes were, we probably considered them to be something that only occurred very rarely. We may even have put them in the category of unusual, uncommon or scarcely at all.
Indeed, Kathryn Schultz, a staff writer at The New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a highly-acclaimed book a decade ago about the considerable presence of error that actually exists in the lives of most humans. Based on her extensive research, she arrived at the conclusion that “being wrong is an inescapable part of being alive.”
In fact, there are some who would believe that what is most normal about human actions is the inevitability of making mistakes. In this view, what is typical for most of us—almost “standard” really — is to be in error much of the time, perhaps even most of the time. The 20th century French author Georges Duhamel, put it this way: “No doubt about it: error is the rule, truth is the accident of error.” So, for the rare times that we are absolutely flawless, infallible and unerring, are we to understand that these are merely scarce, serendipitous moments?
Let’s face it, as far as right and wrong are concerned, most of us kind of automatically assume that our opinions, beliefs, positions, judgements and decisions are obviously correct and that whatever others may believe just doesn’t match up. Think of it: as we go about our daily lives, there is one , very, important constant: peering out at the world each day, everything we experience is seen from our own perspective; our own, singular and unique (to us) point of view. No matter the situation, event or thought process, we each enter into it with an inherent bias that orients us to a place of supremacy, if not at least superiority. Most of us, based on human nature, will begin a transaction with another person with a built-in feeling that the approach we have in mind is a pretty good one, if not the best. A confident person, perhaps even a timid and shy person, still starts from a position of prejudice or partiality for their own, personal slant on things. A wise man once said: “I don’t argue, I just explain why I’m right.”
As Schultz describes it:
“A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about
basically everything: about our political and
intellectual convictions, our religious and moral
beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories,
our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we
stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one
of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.”
We’ve all been in a situation with another person in which both of us at some point recognize that the other is incorrect, but will not — perhaps, cannot —admit it. Why is that? Maybe it’s an issue of too much pride to admit being wrong. Or possibly, too much insecurity? Schultz further suggests that besides psychological factors, our “error-blindness” is more structured, in that :
“we all seem to have a persistent difficulty with imagining that we could be wrong. …If it is literally impossible to feel wrong — if our current mistakes remain imperceptible to us, even when we scrutinize our
innermost being for signs of them — then it makes sense for is to conclude we are right.”
So yes, sometimes the reasons that we humans are not very good at admitting we’re wrong — and, even doubling down on our mistakes/bad choices — is because we may not realize that we don’t know. As Schultz puts it:
“It’s not exactly news that most people are reluctant to admit their ignorance. But the point here is not that we
are bad at saying ‘I don’t know.’ The point is that we are
bad at knowing we don’t know.”
Now, take a guy like The Fonz from “Happy Days.” Those of us loyal viewers back in the day never witnessed Arthur Fonzarelli admitting that he was wrong — about anything. Even when he was mistaken, he could never allow himself to utter the word “wrong.” But, as confident and cocksure as The Fonz acted, perhaps there was a reason why he couldn’t publicly acknowledge he was wrong; possibly because in his heart of hearts, he was more insecure than he let on and may never have actually believed that he was completely right. And, as Schultz explains it:
“Losing an argument, we humans often grow more, rather than less, adamant. — not because we’re sure we’re right, but because we fear we are not.”
Schultz asks the question: Do right and wrong “reflect the real state of the world or are they simply subjective human designations?” And, does truth really exist as an absolute? Though I think that most of what we all consider to be right, or correct, or even truth, are simply our own beliefs. And, with the search for “absolute” knowledge, it’s about more than just right or wrong. Of course, who exactly gets to decide what is true or what is not? Per Schultz, that question has “preoccupied some of the best thinkers of every culture and era since time immemorial.”
The 19th-century English author Samuel Butler (Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh), put it this way about the search for a clear, irrefutable, objective verity: “There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.” (S.Butler, “Truth and Convenience,” Notebooks, 1912) While the French philosopher Charles Renouvier was quoted thusly: “Properly speaking, there is no certainty; there are only people who are certain.”
(C. Renouvier, Essais de Critque Generale)
These are obviously big and serious questions, and while interesting to consider, they take me away from my main thrust and primary mission, which is: Error has a central place in the life of most humans, and more than we might imagine. And, that is not a bad thing at all. Because, the only way that human beings learn and grow and evolve is by making mistakes and then figuring out how to correct them and move on.
In fact, without going into much detail, it’s what the Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s was all about — that “the advancement of knowledge depends on current theories collapsing in the face of new insights and discoveries. In this model of progress, errors do not lead us away from the truth. Instead, they edge us incrementally toward it.” (Schultz)
Put it this way: in order to continue making new discoveries, scientists actually “gravitate toward falsification.” (Schultz) They constantly test their hypotheses in an attempt to disprove their own beliefs — as a way of proving them. I’ll give you another name: Pierre-Simon Laplace (French mathematician). He came up with the “Bell Curve,” searching for a way to refine the theory of distribution of errors. The man was on a mission to gather up and collect errors. And, he used the Bell Curve as a way of “aggregating individually meaningless, idiosyncratic or inaccurate data points in order to generate a meaningful and accurate big picture.” (For those of you out there who have an overwhelming need to learn even more about Laplace and the Bell Curve, please consider doing a bit of extra digging on the topic and turning in a research paper to me for extra credit.)
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve leaned fairly heavily on Kathryn Schultz’s book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. When I first considered an essay on human error, I had no idea that I would come across such a great resource for so many of my questions and, with wonderful insights. Among other things, Schultz came up with the concept of “wrongology,” which is an attempt to see error as an inevitable part of the human experience. And, not to ignore or avoid considering those errors, but to be open to learning from them. One reviewer of the book noted that: “Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world.”
In terms of errors, think for a moment about baseball players and batting averages. Certainly if you’re a major leaguer and you consistently hit .300 or better for your career, then you have a very good chance of ending up in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. But, being a .300 hitter means that you’re only successful 30% of the time. Only three hits in every ten at bats. So, you might see that as “failing” more than twice as much as you are “succeeding.” But, perhaps the way to view this is that these failures — those errors in hitting — if properly understood, could help lead to the successful at bats of a .300 hitter!
There’s no getting away from it: to be human is to be error prone. Or, going back to one of the quotes at the beginning of this piece: “To be human is to be erratic.” Yes, erratic. Not always consistent, or stable, or steady, or dependable, or predictable. Not always precise or on target. All a part, IMHO, of the dynamics of the human condition.
Also among the quotes that began this essay was “fallor ergo sum,” from Augustine, which translates to “I err, therefore I am.” Author Schultz says that this statement by the 4th century theologian, philosopher and saint strongly suggests that “the capacity to get things wrong is not only part of being alive, but in some sense proof of it. For Augustine, being wrong is not just what we do. In some deep sense, it is who we are.”
Shultz finishes up this thought:
“Fallibility is built into our very name and nature;
in theory wholly predictable, in practice always a
jarring surprise. In this respect, fallibility is something
like mortality, another trait that is implicitly in the word ‘human.’ As with dying, we recognize erring as something that happens to everyone, without feeling
that it is either plausible or desirable that it will happen to us.”
With error being such an integral part of life, it’s not surprising that the workplace is where a lot of mistakes happen. Literally, 80 to 90% of workplace accidents are caused by human error. There’s an old adage that’s been around for years. I first heard it in the late ‘60s when I worked in the production plant for Mennen Products: “20% of the workers are involved in 80% of the accidents.” So, while we’re all prone to error, there is a subset of error-makers who are what is called in the language of insurance companies, “accident repeaters.” Those who “log five recordable injuries in three years. A Canadian study found fatality rates and workers’ comp costs for accident repeaters was 10 times higher than for other workers.”
Speaking of workplace errors reminds me of a big one that I produced back in my days as a regional advertising manager for the W.T. Grant Company. It was the fall of 1974 and I had just begun working for one of the country’s largest retailers. Part of my duties as regional ad manager included reviewing and approving the weekly circulars for our multi-state region. We’re talking about at least hundreds of thousands of circulars, if not over a million. The exact number eludes me, probably because I’ve attempted to block it from my mind all these years.
So, one week very early in my career at WTG, the latest circular was in process. I reviewed the entire circular. Check. I reviewed the entire circular a second time. Check. I gave the “okay” to the printing supervisor. Check. I missed one price. Checkmate. There on the cover of that week’s circular was an Artisan, 7 Qt., Enameled Crock Pot. Regular price $69.99, on sale for $54.99. However, I didn’t catch a typo that had the sale price incorrectly listed at $54.49. So, only off by only fifty cents you say, but times a million circulars, it could add up.
I’d been horrified upon receiving a call from a friendly store manager who alerted me to the mistake. The next thing to do was to bring this matter to the attention of my boss, the Regional Marketing VP, John Scanlon. Oh, John Scanlon. I have great memories of the man. He truly was unique and one-of-a-kind. When I think back to Mr. Scanlon, I picture a guy in a trench coat, sporting a fedora, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Kind of like Columbo, but before there was a Columbo. He was a straight-talking, no-nonsense type of person. And, he either liked you or he didn’t. I think I was fortunate that I managed most of the time to get the job done and stay on his good side.
So, when I went to him with my bad news, I have to admit that I was actually a bit fearful for my job. I hadn’t been at Grants for very long, maybe three months, and I had a young family to think about. What if this got me fired? But, I knew I had to man up and get it over with. It was totally my error and there was no one else to blame. As Lee Iacocca wrote in his book, Talking Straight, “If you own up to your mistakes, you don’t (ultimately) suffer as much. But, that’s a tough lesson to learn.”
Fortunately, when I got in to see John, he had already heard of the pricing mistake. I was actually taken aback when my boss said to me: “Frank, look it’s a mistake, we all make them. The only people who don’t make mistakes are those who don’t do anything. Learn from this. And — just don’t do it again.” Maybe John Scanlon would have agreed somewhat with this sentiment from George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” However, Scanlon probably would’ve added: “But, keep them to a minimum, okay…”
At any rate, I think I learned a few things over the years in my business career. And, one of them is that if you are in a position that requires you to make a decision, then dammit, make sure to review your options carefully and in detail. But, don’t dilly dally for too long. As one of my bosses, Dick Snyder, used to say: “If you’re gonna lead, lead; if you’re gonna follow, follow — otherwise, get the hell out of the way.”
Let’s face it: in the practical world of business, or academics, or any other discipline — in life, really — you’re never going to be in possession of all of the facts — of 100% of the possible data points. So, as another boss of mine (and life-long friend) Rick Ricciardi, advised me oh so many years ago: “You sometimes, most times, need to make a decision before you know every possible option. But, when it comes time to make that decision, do it thoughtfully and with conviction.” And, by the way, be able to explain your rationale behind the decision to your boss. That insightful advice helped me in my career. And, I think what the 1st century B.C. Roman statesman and philosopher, Cicero, had to say on the subject still resonates: “More is lost by indecision than by the wrong decision.”
Scripture tells us that there is no one without sin; similarly, common sense and life experience tell us that there is no one without error. We humans are all prone to errors, to mistakes, to lapses, to blunders, to slip-ups, to straying from the right course — to fallibility.
Of course, no one wants to commit an error or make a mistake. And, while we certainly don’t wish to just accept any lesser result, we need to understand that there can be diminishing returns in pushing for a goal that, while not impossible to reach, may practically make little to no difference if not achieved. In other words: “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” Sometimes, when we are overzealous and not alert to the big picture, we may push for outcomes — in business, in our education, in life — that may do more harm than good.
So, perhaps the lesson, or insight, to be gained from Schultz’s book on error, is this: Error is integral to our lives. All of us. We need to accept that as fact and find ways to learn from our mistakes and evolve as human beings. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s how humans have advanced themselves since time immemorial. And, to paraphrase the early 18th century English poet, Alexander Pope: “To err is human, very human…”
Resonance 