Avoiding Fatal Mistakes!

Mind Tools Newsletter 41 - 31 January 2006 This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd, of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of the email se sent you. If you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit http://mindtools.com/subscribe.htm.

Contents: What's New? Reverse Brainstorming Book Review Mind Tools Store Get Your Schedule in Shape A Final Note

In this issue, we give you a new problem-solving tool, which combines the well-used techniques of problem reversal and brainstorming. Also known as "negative brainstorming," this tool can be relied on to help identify solutions to otherwise perplexing problems

And we review an outstanding book entitled "Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal? Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes that can Destroy Your Organization," by Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr. As you will see, we found this book to be a one-of-a-kind resource for anyone striving success in their career and organization.

Also in this issue, we include the next in our popular "Quick Tips" series. Here we relay top tips from your favorite mind tools that, in a matter of minutes, you can review and apply to your day-to-day work. This issue, our Quick Tips focus on how to better manage your time.and yes, your stress levels, too.

As always, there are even more tools for you to check out in the What's New section on the Mind Tools website too. We add new tools every week - just follow the links below to learn them.

We hope you enjoy this issue and encourage you to share the information in this newsletter and on the Mind Tools site with your colleagues and friends.

Best wishes and until next time!

James & Kellie

To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.

New tools on the Mind Tools site

• 27th Jan 2006 - Nominal Group Technique - Prioritizing issues and projects in a way that achieves consensus.
• 24th Jan 2006 - Vision Statements & Mission Statements - Unleashing the power of purpose.
• 19th Jan 2006 - Reverse Brainstorming - A different approach to brainstorming.

Find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded! Click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.

New Tools:
Reverse Brainstorming:
A Different Approach to Brainstorming

Reverse brainstorming helps you solve problems with a combination of brainstorming and reversal techniques. By combining these, you can extend your use of brainstorming to draw out even more creative ideas.

To use this technique, you start with one of two “reverse” questions:

Instead of asking, “how do I solve or prevent this problem?” ask, “how could I possibly cause the problem?”

Instead of asking “how do I achieve these results?” ask, “how could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?”

How to use the tool:
1. Clearly identify the problem or challenge, and write it down.

2. Reverse the problem or challenge by asking:

“How could I possibly cause the problem?”, or
“How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?”

3. Brainstorm the reverse problem to generate reverse solution ideas. Allow the brainstorm ideas to flow freely. Do not reject anything at this stage.

4. Once you have brainstormed all the ideas to solve the reverse problem, now reverse these into solution ideas for the original problem or challenge.

5. Evaluate these solution ideas. Can you see a potential solution? Can you see attributes of a potential solution?

Tip: Reverse brainstorming is a good technique to try when it is difficult to identify solutions to the problem directly.

Example:
Luciana is the manager of a health clinic and she has the task of improving patient satisfaction.

There have been various improvement initiatives in the past and the team members have become rather skeptical about another meeting on the subject. The team is overworked, team members are trying their best and they are cynical about the likely success of yet another "top-down" initiative.

So she decides to use some creative problem solving techniques she has learned. This, she hopes, will make the team meeting more interesting and engage people in a new way. Perhaps it will reveal something more than the usual “good ideas” that no one has time to act on.

To prepare for the team meeting, Luciana thinks carefully about the problem and writes down the problem statement:

“How do we improve patient satisfaction?”

Then she reverses problem statement:

“How do we create make more patients dissatisfied?”

Already she starts to see how the new angle could reveal some surprising results.

At the team meeting, everyone gets involved in an enjoyable and productive reverse brainstorming session. They draw on both their work experience with patients and also their personal experience of being patients and customers of other organizations. Luciana helps ideas flow freely, ensuring people to not pass judgment on even the most unlikely suggestions.

Here are just a few of the “reverse” ideas:

• Double book appointments
  
• Remove the chairs from the waiting room
  
• Put patients who phone on hold (and forget about them)
  
• Have patients wait outside in the car park
  
• Discuss patient’s problems in public
  
• … and so on

When the brainstorming session runs dry, the team has a long list of the “reverse” solutions.

Now it’s time to look at each one in reverse into a potential solution. As you will see, resulting discussions are quite revealing. For example:

“Well of course we don’t leave patients outside in the car park – we already don’t do that.”

“But what about in the morning: There are often patients waiting outside until opening time?

“Mmm, true. Pretty annoying for people on first appointments.”

“So why don’t we open the waiting room 10 minutes earlier so it doesn’t happen”

“OK, we’ll do that from tomorrow. There are 2 or 3 staff working already, so it’s no problem”.

And so it goes on. The reverse brainstorming session revealed tens of improvement ideas that the team could implement swiftly and easily.

Luciana concluded: “It was enlightening and fun to looking at the problem in reverse. The amazing thing is, it’s helped us become more patient-friendly by stopping doing things rather than creating more work”.

This is just one of Mind Tools’ articles on creativity and problem solving techniques. For more on:

• Business Creativity: See our Creativity Tools section; and
• Problem Solving: See our Problem Solving Techniques section.

---

Book Review :
Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?
Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Organization
By Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr.
Reviewed by Kellie Fowler

“Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?” is a well-written, well-structured source book for anyone in looking to avoid the most common organizational mistakes, and the devastating setbacks that generally accompany these. While it is written with senior management in mind, it has important lessons for people at any stage of their career.

In the book, Mittelstaedt takes an in-depth look at errors made in preparation, strategy, execution, and culture. He provides insights into what can save an organization from their mistakes-in-the-making, in all of these areas.

Using powerful examples from Enron and the Space Shuttle Columbia to Eastern Airlines, the Coca-Cola Company, even the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11, he makes a compelling case that most disasters are the result of mistakes – each one easy to overlook individually, each one set in motion because the evidence that should have serve as a powerful warning sign was ultimately ignored.

With these examples, he shows how mistakes happen and he draws conclusion about how they could be avoided.

We all know that leaders and organizations should learn from their mistakes. Better still they should learn from the mistakes of others. But how? Well, Mittelstaedt provides new ways and great illustrations to help you do just that. By looking in depth at the case studies he has compiled and analyzed, you will learn to look at risks in your own organization and career. By spotting “mistakes-in-waiting” at an early stage, you can develop strategies and actions to manage the risk and avoid eventual disaster.

Mittelstaedt neatly draws attention to the spiraling effect that can lead to disaster, even from the simplest of mistakes: The initial problem goes undetected, further problems compound the effect, inept corrective action is taken, with perhaps an attempt to hide the truth. This is followed by disbelief at the accelerating seriousness of the mistake. And finally, disaster strikes…

He helps the reader see how this spiral can be broken. This is not always easy to spot, and even more tricky to resolve, as the perpetuation of mistakes, he has found, is often bound up in the organization’s culture.

So, he helps his readers understand how an organization’s culture contributes to how it deals with mistakes. He examines comprehensively how an organization culture help or hinders its learning, and its ability to break the cycle of making multiple mistakes. And for me, this is one area in which Mittelstaedt’s book stands out in its class.

In sum, Mittelstaedt’s analysis and examples will help you consider some fundamental questions about your organization:

• Is there a disaster waiting to happen?
• Will you see the signs?
• Will you stop it in time?
• What can you learn from others?

The book is a powerful read and a strong resource that I highly recommend for anyone and everyone in management who wants to learn how to learn from other people’s mistakes - before they make the same mistakes themselves.

Robert E. Mittelstaedt Jr. is dean and professor of the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. He has consulted with organizations from IBM to Weirton Steel, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

You can see more on “Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal,” at Amazon.com.

---

The Mind Tools Store:

• How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You: Learn the 48 simple but essential skills you need to become a top leader in your industry. More >>
  
  
• The Mind Tools E-book: All of the tools on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable, easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and use. More >>
  
  
• Make Time for Success: Learn 39 essential personal effectiveness techniques that help you bring your workload under control and maximize your productivity, so that you can make the most of the opportunities open to you. More >>
  
  
• Design Your Life Design the life you want to live. Set the clear, vivid, powerful goals you need to live it to the full. More >>
  
  
• Personal Coaching from Career Excellence Professionals: Find career and life direction, bring your job under control, build self-confidence and put yourself on the path to long term success with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches give you the focused personal coaching you need to make the very most of your career and life. More >>

---

Quick Tips:
Get Your Schedule in Shape… in 2 Minutes

Here are some tips that you can quickly put to use to enhance your time management and scheduling skills, with the goal being to maximize your personal and professional effectiveness and minimize the stress of work overload.

Whether you are looking to become more organized, to lower your stress level, or to find a way to fit more into your day, effective scheduling is a great place to start:

Scheduling Your Time:
Scheduling is best done on a regular basis, for example at the start of every week or month. Go through the following steps in preparing your schedule:

1. Start by identifying the time you want to make available for your work. This will depend on the design of your job and on your personal goals in life.

2. Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against, and should include time to manage people who depend on you.

3. Review your Action Plan (see Mind Tools' Make Time for Success!) or Prioritized To-Do List, and schedule in the high-priority urgent activities, as well as the essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated and cannot be avoided.

4. Next, block in appropriate contingency time. You will learn how much of this you need by experience. Normally, the more unpredictable your job, the more contingency time you need.

5. What you now have left is your "discretionary time": the time available to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals. Review your prioritized To-Do List, evaluate the time needed to achieve these actions, and schedule these in.

6. Almost inevitably, you'll run out of time at some stage in this process. When you do, go back to your Action Plan/Prioritized To-Do List, and ruthlessly prune the activities that are not absolutely necessary. If this affects promised deliveries to other people, then notify them or negotiate appropriately.

Prioritized To-Do Lists and Scheduling tools are available at the Mind Tools site. For more in-depth time management tools, find out about Mind Tools Make Time For Success! program which offers 39 tools (including the "Action Program" tool for managing your projects and goals).

---

A Final Note From James

So, that’s it: Another newsletter and “What’s New” section, bursting at the seams with new career skills! It seems every issue, we have so much exciting information to bring newsletter readers.

In the next newsletter, we're focusing on helping all our readers to a better work-life balance (it's the Valentine's edition, you see!) So look out for our topical work-life balance tips and articles, including an interview with Mind Tools Coach Sharon Juden.

And we look at the GROW model, a useful approach for coaching team members to improve performance.

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

Click here to email
Mind Tools
Essential Skills for an Excellent Career!

Privacy Policy:
Mind Tools will treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any third party.

To unsubscribe, please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email we sent you.

IIf you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit the mindtools.com site and subscribe using the form on the right hand side bar.

© Mind Tools Ltd, 2006.
If you have enjoyed this issue, please feel free to email it on to your friends and co-workers. If you think they would benefit from the skills we teach, please pass this newsletter on!

Also, you are very welcome to post this issue of the newsletter to your own web site. If you do, you must leave it completely intact, include copyright information, and include both the URL of the mindtools site (http://www.mindtools.com) and the subscription email address for the newsletter (http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm).

---

Where to go from here: