I began reading these chapters right after I finished discussing "The Apprentice" from Sunday night with my Mom. I laughed as I read the story about the conductor admitting fault instead of blaming others. In recent episodes of "The Apprentice" Donald Trump will almost immediately use the words, "You're fired" the moment you admit fault within a task.
Admitting fault is fine if we end up learning from it. If we take constructive criticism, learn from it, and continue with 'rule 6' a learning environment can be better for all. Recently teachers were told they had to change. Someone moved their cheese and for weeks they blamed others for their mistakes. Good teachers who eventually joined forces with themselves and began to 'glide' through their effectiveness.
I agree with learning from fault. Without the opportunity to fail then you will not succeed. Change is part of learning with fault. When fault takes place you can reflect and respond to it to find what was the issue. This helps us as educators and learners to improve what went wrong or the issue of change.
ReplyDeleteI think it was Kierkegaard who said something to effect that it's generally not a good thing when we expect life lessons from our theater (their version of TV) and also expect to be entertained in church. That's my first thought about modeling any kind of management based on a show that's built on a catch-phrase and completely detached from anything that most of us deal with on a day-to-day level. I so completely agree with you that we completely miss the point when admitting to a fault is grounds for dismissal. Then again, it is just a TV show.
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