Mistake as a coach

[AndrewLewis]

Rip,

When you first started as a coach (or even now), what do you do when you make a negligent mistake when training someone?

My process has been as follows:
1) Admit the mistake to myself.
2) Figure out how to fix it.
3) Figure out how to not make the mistake in the future.
4) Admit the mistake to the client if necessary.

I recall you mentioning at a seminar that you were unaware of the "women's 3RM is closer to their 1RM than men's" phenomenon and made a handling error for a woman at a weightlifting meet.
How did you get over that? It mentally burns me when I screw up something as a coach.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You learn from the mistake and grow as a coach. Obviously. People who can't admit they were wrong are cowards.

[Dave Wilson]

You learn from the mistake and grow as a coach. Obviously. People who can't admit they were wrong are cowards.

This rings true in all aspects of life, not just coaching. Any person who won't admit when they have made a mistake, is someone destined to stunt their growth as a human being.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Not to mention their credibility.

[brkriete]

When I interview a potential new hire, I always ask them "Can you give me an example of a mistake you made and how you handled it?"

There's no real "right" answer but I want to hear something about "I communicate it, I escalate it, I fix it if possible, I figure out why it happened and how to keep it from happening again." That kind of thing. When people can't think of mistakes or give a kind of wishy-washy answer I know that they're either liars or idiots.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

When I interview a potential new hire, I always ask them "Can you give me an example of a mistake you made and how you handled it?"

There's no real "right" answer but I want to hear something about "I communicate it, I escalate it, I fix it if possible, I figure out why it happened and how to keep it from happening again." That kind of thing. When people can't think of mistakes or give a kind of wishy-washy answer I know that they're either liars or idiots.

So you won't accept "I made the mistake of trying too hard and caring too much."

[brkriete]

So you won't accept "I made the mistake of trying too hard and caring too much."

"So you're telling me you don't care and won't try? Why would I hire you?"

I had someone tell me they could not think of a mistake they had made. I pressed a little - can you tell me about a time someone on your team made a mistake and did you help them fix it? and she couldn't think of anything. Someone else in my company ended up hiring her and she was not a good employee.

My takeaway is that she either made mistakes and was too dumb to realize it or else what she was doing was so simple there was literally no way to screw it up. Neither one is the kind of talent I'd be looking to hire. Or she was a liar.

[Brodie Butland]

So you won't accept "I made the mistake of trying too hard and caring too much."

Funny because it's true! Generally the folks I have interviewed were smart enough to avoid the take-a-positive-and-make-it-look-like-a-negative approach...but it has happened a couple times. Each time I've responded "That's a very nice canned answer. Now could you please give me a real one?"

Like brkriete, I always ask the weakness/failure question, not because I want to see if s/he has a future in politics, but because I want to see (1) is this person capable of honest introspection, (2) does s/he have the initiative to correct the problem, and (3) is s/he successful in doing so. Part of being a decent lawyer--or really a decent anything--is knowing your weaknesses, working on correcting them, knowing when to look for help, and not passing the buck. If someone hasn't made a mistake in their work, they aren't trying hard enough.