45. Learn from your mistakes

"A career setback can be like a romance gone bad. If you don't learn from your mistakes, you're doomed to repeat them, most likely in your next job. Many professionals are so eager to flee a bad job or fearful of being jobless, they jump from one job mismatch to the next, just like some people do in their personal relation­ships. If you've been knocked down but haven't looked at what caused your stumble, you're set­ting yourself up to fall again." Bradley G. Richardson, 'To Move Ahead Again. Learn From Career Setbacks'

We all make mistakes - we wouldn't be the wonderfully creative, innovative managers we are if we didn't. But some managers gloss over any mistakes they make. They cover them, bury them, forget about them. You, as a brilliant manager, won't do that. You won't beat yourself up over them, nor sit in a pit of misery over them but you will analyze what went wrong, discuss with colleagues why it went wrong and make a plan to prevent it from going wrong again.

Our mistakes could be anything from a badly handled appraisal, a lost sale, a badly thought out report, a poor use of time or resources, a failure to meet a deadline - when you start to write down how many failures there could be the list is endless

Once you have made your mistake the important thing to do as well as all the above is to find out the right way to do it next time. Being a manager is an ongoing learning experience. You never stand still and you never think you know it all - you don't and can't. But you can have trusted people to ask and good reference books to hand to guide you - especially if they are short, sharp, snappy, and practical.*

Mistakes are brilliant because they not only teach us where we went wrong but also how to fix it. You are a better manager, more experienced, have a wider spectrum to call on when you've made a few errors. We all make mistakes - admit them, learn from them and move on.

46. Be ready to unlearn - what works, changes

"I simply wish to encourage you that, irrespec­tive of what you have learnt in the school, always be ready to unlearn and relearn. Don't give up dreaming. If we all dream about a better world, I can guarantee you well get there." Professor Muhammad Yunus, University of the South, Tennessee

You know how it is, you're sailing along doing what you've always done and suddenly you're not making your figures, sales are dropping, staff turnover is going up, things are falling apart. But you're not doing anything you haven't done in the past. You had a winning formula and suddenly it doesn't work any more. What can you do? Well, for a start realize that what works, changes. And it can change so rapidly you didn't realize it until it's too late. Be aware of this, be ready and prepared to adapt quickly. You have to stay abreast of:

latest innovations in your industry

new technology

* new terminology

new methodology

changes in sales, market trends, staff turnover figures, targets and budgets.

Don't get stuck in any ruts. Be ready to spin on a coin if you have to. Good management is about adapting to change rapidly and skilfully. If you don't, you go the way of the dinosaurs.

The same goes for all sorts of things - style of management with staff, for instance. You might have a way with them that has worked for years and all of a sudden it doesn't. You could persevere, but you might lose staff rapidly. Better to be ready to unlearn your old ways and adopt new ones. It could be you have changed, unknowingly, unconsciously. If we get stuck in ways of doing things, sometimes we change them without recognizing that change. We have to be alert to those changes that creep in.