After a mistake: accountability without devaluation
After a mistake, a debrief addresses the facts, but also what the person concludes about themselves. The management question is specific: how can the requirement to correct a mistake be maintained without turning an assessment of an action into a judgement of the person?
What the literature establishes
June Price Tangney, Jeff Stuewig and Debra J. Mashek (2007, Annual Review of Psychology) distinguish, in their literature review, between guilt focused on a behaviour and shame focused on a global evaluation of the self. The former is generally associated with tendencies to make amends, while the latter can encourage withdrawal, defensiveness or blaming others. This distinction describes tendencies, not two responses that a manager could reliably identify from an expression or a silence.
Being less harsh on yourself does not mean giving up
Juliana G. Breines and Serena Chen (2012, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) show, in a series of experiments, that a self-compassionate approach after a failure or transgression can increase motivation to improve. The proposed mechanism is that a difficulty becomes easier to examine when it does not threaten a person's entire sense of self-worth. These studies concern self-compassion, rather than directly validating an emotional intelligence programme.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that anyone who has made a mistake should immediately be reassured. The evidence justifies neither erasing the consequences nor replacing analysis with a kind phrase. The task is to distinguish responsibility for an action from devaluing its author, while also examining the organisational conditions that contributed to the mistake. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these studies cannot promise
A review of moral emotions and experiments on motivation do not demonstrate that a particular way of wording a debrief reduces workplace errors. An intention to make amends is not a completed corrective action, and its effects also depend on available resources and procedures. A manager should therefore neither try to induce guilt nor record presumed shame in a performance appraisal.
A practical check in Sion
As part of SHR's emotional intelligence programme, an exercise in Sion could focus on debriefing after a mistake, using situations adapted to hydropower, healthcare, viticulture or Alpine tourism, without replacing safety procedures. The proposed protocol separates the observable fact, its consequences, contributing factors and corrective action, with an owner and a deadline, without making a global judgement of the person. Over a predefined pilot period, the team can measure the proportion of corrective actions completed on time among those due, verifying completion through operational records. Comparing this rate with that of the previous period provides a monitoring indicator, not causal proof of the protocol's effectiveness. To go further: explore the Emotional Intelligence training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Emotional Intelligence in Sion
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