The Important Lesson of Saying "My Fix"
Do you remember when you first made a mistake and what you were told was to say “my bad”? Do you remember how bad you felt afterwards for even the simplest of mistakes? How people would look at you as if you had made such a traumatic decision that things would never be the same anymore? This is particularly true in sports… especially in sports. People are trained from a very young age to apologize for their mistakes; to apologize for simple failures in their everyday lives. Most of the time, when we apologize for such simple mistakes, we don’t consider the negative impact the phrase “my bad” has on us. And even more so, the affect it has on others and the way they look at us when we make mistakes.
Let’s say, for example, that I am playing soccer (football) and I make a pass that ends up in the opponents feet and then that player ends up scoring a point against us. If not always, most of the time we will hear immediate negative reactions from teammates who are supposed to be standing by our sides through thick and thin. It is as if we have been trained as individuals to cheer when we are winning and tear down when we are losing. Trust me, I cannot list the number of times I’ve had to apologize for the mistakes I’ve made in sports, in school, with friends, with family, or with my girlfriend - when instead I wished I could just simply let others know it was not a permanent negative state. That a mistake is temporary. That a mistake is only a moment that passes. That a mistake is a lesson that can be learned from if given the right circumstances. However, people are trained to think otherwise.
When we make a mistake, it should be accompanied by support rather than discrimination and harsh critique. No, I don’t mean we have to disregard a mistake and move past it without addressing the issue. What I do mean, however, is that we should consider how we respond in asking someone to fix their mistakes. In How to Win Friends & Influence People: In the Digital World, the authors Dale Carnegie & Associates mentioned the importance of separating the person from the failure. As noted in the book, a study conducted by a Harvard professor and researcher, Amy Edmondson, identified the way failure is seen in organizations. Edmondson said,
When I ask executives to estimate how many of the failures in their organizations are truly blameworthy, their answers are usually in single digits. Perhaps 2% to 5%. But when I ask how many are treated as blameworthy they say, after a pause or a laugh, 70% to 90%.
How can it be that 70%-90% of failures in the workplace are treated as “truly blameworthy”? It seems that this behavior carries on from childhood to higher organizations with no real efforts of mitigating its occurrence. Carnegie & Associates explain that lessons are lost from unreported failures. And that these mistakes are “lost opportunities for learning and coaching.
It was in college when I first learned the importance of saying, “My fix.” I was playing rugby for probably my third season when our coach, Ward Patterson, became fed up with the negativity on the field. We became all too comfortable as a team, as players, as brothers calling each other out. We would discriminate one another when something went wrong and only encourage when things were going right. This was similar to other teams we competed with who, time and time again, I watched tear each other down leading to their downfalls. I can admit to this because in moments when we were greatly losing and the opponents momentum was at their peaks, one person would make a mistake and all of a sudden, the energy on their side would shift. From winning, they would quickly fail at basic team tasks. Things like communication, support lines, encouragement, athleticism, physical energy, expression of talents, creativity, team pride, perspectives, and positive outlooks went down the drain. They lost the game before the timer hit “0.”
Implementing a simple phrase, “My fix,” changed everything. From bad support lines, we would be there for one another at every moment. From a lack of creativity, we would be encouraged to regain our motivation to do better than we had done before, with creativity, skill, and expression of our greatest abilities, especially at the moment of our mistakes. Ultimately, we would go from from being tied or losing to winning.
This was not just a one time event. No. The team I played for belongs to a DIII institution. As a club, my coach led the team over time to being able to participate in DII championships. Finally, our college of around 500 students versus institutions with populations in the tens of thousands, became the only college or university in the nation to compete and place at the Rugby Nationals Championship six years, consecutively; winning 1st place in one of those years.
As our captain, Scott Marunde, once said in an interview, "Our ability to play together, our chemistry and team cohesion really helps us on the field. Our coach stresses having the mental capacity to play to the final whistle.” These achievements were possible through the efforts our coach put into what a team really means, what teamwork really should be like, and how team dynamics play out in response to how we treat one-another even when things aren’t going as planned.
This is only an example of the important lesson of saying, “My fix.” It is a message to all those who are listening that you don’t plan on staying in a state of failure of a moment that went awry; that you don’t plan on relishing in a moment that led to a temporary downfall. No. Every great leader, teammate, employee, manager, brother, sister, mother, father, or friend should understand that to grow, we must learn to build each-other up when we are down. And that fixing your mistake is the only way that you’ll go in the right direction.
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