In our culture, we are always afraid of making a mistake

A mistake is always looked down upon. What defines a mistake is a totally different debate, but it could be a small thing like sending an email to the wrong person. And since making a mistake it a crime, everyone tries either not to accept the mistake or find ways of hiding it. And if a mistake comes to light, then the immediate reaction is to get defensive!

A few experiences in the past month but 2 noteworthy one’s in office: One in which – to not accept the mistake the person went on such a defensive note, that she used lines like, “Are you a CA? What kind of a CA are you, if you don’t know this… “ And this response was to a clarificatory email. The context of this a long one, and I am too bored to type it all out. In the other instance, like I mentioned earlier, since the email was not marked to me but to someone else – that email was never sent to me, but the person followed up with frantic calls – just to avoid resending the email…