Lessons about mistakes from Cocomelon and a 6 year old

Weekly evaluation inspiration for…

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A square picture with a blue background. The text reads "Year end got you down?", "Take some time to think about what you can automate or do differently next year", "You're a quarter of the way through 2024, congrats!"

Hi! I’m Allison and I’m an evaluation and organizational learning consultant. I’m also a mom, and sometimes my kids tell me what to write about…

If you’re anything like me, you’re a bit hesitant about automating things because mistakes can happen. Like the time I thought I’d make sure that I didn’t forget my friend’s birthday (which is Valentine’s day/ the day after mine/ often and shamefully accidentally forgotten) and ATTEMPTED to schedule send on a heartfelt e-card but forgot the scheduling bit and actually sent it a week before her birthday. It’s true, sometimes automation can leave you without that human touch.

This week, while watching Cocomelon Lane with my 6 year old, there was a cake-tastrophy with Cody and his dad baking for his mom. Cody’s dad said “Mess ups happen to everyone. When they do, that just means we get to learn and try again.” My daughter immediately turned to me and said “you should use that in one of your stories mom!” (And here I thought she didn’t know what kind of work I do…)

A picture of Cody, from Cocomelon Lane, and his dad. Cody is a young black boy and his dad is a black man with a goatee. They are both wearing aprons and chef's hats. The dad is holding icing to draw on a white cake.

Mess ups do happen to everyone, whether you’re automating things or not! Like last week in this newsletter, when I tried to share this LinkedIn post, but instead shared a google doc (sorry to those of you who got there in error!)

The organizations that I find have the most success integrating a culture of learning are constantly looking for ways to improve, especially when mistakes happen. They take it as input to inform future decisions. It supports psychological safety while at the same time being a really simple approach to continuous improvement.

Automating things isn’t inherently going to cause any more or less mistakes. What will help, though, is being intentional about how things are done, when, and by whom (human or computer or…well trained dolphin?). Clear processes not only support you in carrying out a task, but they’ll also help you know what to do when a mess up happens.

One of my favourite automations so far is using a scheduling link for my calendar. What’s yours? Click here to schedule a 20 minute chat and tell me about it!

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