Should you fire someone who made a big mess?

In my twenties I got a job as the IT manager for a stockbroker. One day I made a huge mistake working on our online trading database.

I set all our clients’ portfolios to the exact same amount of each share. The risk was people would be unable to sell the shares they owned or even sell those they didn’t own. I worked furiously and after 30 minutes had cleaned up my mess.

That evening the head of the business came to my desk. Richard and I worked well together but I knew he set the bar high and would not be happy. I braced myself...

He sat down and asked: “Dave, did you learn something today?” I told him that I did and he said “Good” and walked away. 

He knew I wasn’t generally negligent. He also knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If he fired me, he‘d have to replace me with someone unproven. Someone who had not yet made this mistake.

This story came to mind after reading this Don Valentine quote:

“The trouble with the first time entrepreneur is that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. After a failure, he does know what he doesn’t know and can beat the hell out of people who still have to learn.”

It’s true in entrepreneurship and in work life in general. Mistakes can be invaluable as long as we learn from them.

Thanks Richard Seddon. Those were awesome times!