The Trap of Repeating Mistakes
We have a common saying in Spanish for when you make the same mistake twice: “stumble twice with the same stone.” People typically use this phrase to suggest that someone has not learned from their previous experience and that the mistake was avoidable.
I learned this lesson long before I studied any continuous improvement methodology. I understood that making a mistake the first time might be acceptable, but I should always do better the second time. This mindset has been a driver throughout my life..
It is also why a story I recently read regarding Carlos from Kloshletter resonated with me so much.
The Struggle of Daily Execution
Carlos writes a daily newsletter where he summarizes the news in a very agile manner. It is perfect to read with your morning coffee. To make this happen, he must select content, write the text, and send the email early every single morning.
While his content and links are usually correct, he admitted to making a frequent, frustrating mistake: the date was often wrong. This is how he explains it in his original post:
In the three months I’ve been running KloshLetter, there’s one detail I’ve messed up several times: the date, which is how I open every email.
(…)
For a few days, I decided to remove the date and the day from the start of the email. By simplifying, I avoided the problem. The system improved.
The issue? Some readers, who had grown accustomed to that opening ritual over the years, wrote to me asking about the change. So, I brought the date back. And yesterday, once again, I got it wrong.
The Hidden Pattern. If you look at the entire system, the pattern is obvious: the email is written every morning. It coincides with the pressure of finding news, figuring out the best way to explain it, and having a very tight window for proofreading.
And in that context, you introduce a tiny, almost ridiculous, yet extremely sensitive variable: writing the exact date every single day.
That’s not bad luck or a lack of focus. The problem is placing that decision at the worst possible moment.
Redesigning the Process (The Only Real Solution). The decision I’m making now isn’t heroic; it’s purely structural. 👉 Prepare each email for next week every Friday, setting up the correct date and template in advance.
What actually changes? I’m separating thinking from executing. You reduce the daily cognitive load.
You make the error difficult, rather than making the success heroic.
The Role of Leadership in Process Design
This scenario happens to all of us in our professional and private lives. I have always believed that a major part of my role as a leader is to support my team in having the right processes and tools. I see this as a win-win for both the organization and the individuals.
- Organizational Quality: The company ensures a minimum standard of quality without requiring every employee to have their most brilliant day, every single day.
- Employee Consistency: Team members can feel confident that by following the established process, their outcome will remain consistent and meet requirements.
Moving Beyond “Human Error”
When I first started performing Root Cause Analysis (RCA), we often tended to identify “human error” as the cause. The corrective action associated to such causes would typically be additional reviews or notes in a manual.
I recall continuous improvement leaders rejecting any RCA that relied on those excuses. Most of the time, a “human error” is actually a symptom of a broken process. Identifying the broken process, and fixing it is often more difficult than blaming an individual for not having paid enough attention on a particular case. However, it is the only way to secure lasting results.
Even if we speak about processes, there are still people behind everything we do, and as such, we have factors affecting our ability to perform. That is why, everything aiming to protect us from misses when we are not at our peak, or distracted by something else is key. Rescheduling an activity to a less stressful moment is a great trick, but the solution can take many forms:
- Standardized Templates: Useful for newsletters, Request for Quotations (RFQs), recurrent communications, … almost anything you will need to communicate in a structured manner.
- Visual Cues: Such as alarms, checklists, or even a simple note at the door before leaving to remember to turn off the lights.
As we have seen, trusting “pay more attention” as a solution to not stumble with the same stone twice will probably not work. Rescheduling tasks or constraining our ability to make mistakes is.
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