E’s post on the plight of Casey Serin had me thinking about my mistakes. Believe me, there have been quite a few, so many that I thought about starting a blog Kimber’s Mistake Of The Day.
One really stands out. The day I lost a million dollars. Not just a million dollars of my money (I wish, I’d be broke but feel less guilty), a million dollars of the company’s money, yeah innocent shareholder money, executive bonus money.
As a project manager, I made a one line error on what I thought was a simple contract for equipment. I had thought this contract was identical to the last one. It wasn’t. That one line made a big, big difference and the vendor held me to my error.
So I had to suck it up, stand in front of the executive team, and admit to the mistake. Yes, the project would still make money but not as much money as first thought. Yes, I had worked out a way to minimize the damage but I was still out a million dollars.
Dead silence. Then a lot of yelling, arm waving, pacing back and forth (never a good sign) but I didn’t get canned (actually a year later, I received a promotion).
One of the execs took me aside after they were done tearing a strip off of me and asked if I had learned something today. I had, boy, had I. Then he told me that mistakes happen, mistakes will continue to happen and the harder I play, the bigger the mistakes they will be (he also told me that if I ever f***ed with his bonus again, he’d personally fire my a$$).
I became the Casey Serin of the company. The poster girl of what not to do on contracts. My mistake resulted in every project manager since being double, triple careful on their contracts. My million dollar mistake has saved the company many more millions.
Yes, Casey made a mistake. He will continue to make mistakes. You will continue to make mistakes. But by him sharing his mistakes, hopefully you won’t make the same ones (be fresh, be original, make different mistakes).