Why Acknowledging Mistakes Increases Trust
From What Would Google Do?:
We are ashamed to make mistakes — as well we should be, yes? It’s our job to get things right, right? So when we make mistakes our instinct is to shrink into a ball and wish them away. Correcting errors, though necessary, is embarrassing.
But the truth about truth itself is counterintuitive: Corrections do not diminish credibility. Corrections enhance credibility. Standing up and admitting your errors makes you more believable; it gives your audience faith that you will right your future wrongs.
When companies apologize for bad performance — as JetBlue did after keeping passengers on tarmacs for hours — that tells us that they know their performance wasn’t up to their standard, and we have a better idea of the standard we should expect.
Also: “Being willing to be wrong is key to innovation.”
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Re: innovation
Yes yes yes.
A key factor in brainstorming is quantity not quality. This willingness to spout out even weak ideas actually aids the creative process by providing more options for new points of creative departure. Folks that are too worried about sharing bad ideas actually limit the process.
One of former President Bush’s greatest weaknesses: Unwilling to admit mistakes