Keep a written log of your mistakes, alone

Record each failure or problem you notice, in writing and in plain terms, so its causes can be traced later.

Perché funziona

According to the Mind Tools summary, Bridgewater rewards employees for recording failures and problems, and the company uses those records to find root causes. The source gives that purpose and does not explain why a written record helps an individual. The nearest account is the authors’ argument that weaknesses kept out of view are harder to overcome, which applies to a private log as much as to a shared one.

Come farlo

1. Keep a running note on your phone or in a notebook.
2. When something goes wrong, write in two lines what happened and what you think caused it.
3. Once a week, read the notes and look for a cause that comes up more than once.
4. Leave the entries as they were written, without rewriting them to look better.

Prove scientifiche

The Bridgewater example comes from the Mind Tools summary, which is secondary and describes an organizational issues log. The broader argument that hidden weaknesses limit growth comes from the SSIR excerpt. A personal log is an adaptation of the company practice; the sources do not describe it. (anecdotal)

The Mind Tools description is of a company log, not a personal diary. Writing about failure can turn into self-blame, and the sources do not address that risk.

Fonti

• Mind Tools. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization [secondary summary of the book].
• Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2016, April 6). An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization [excerpt]. Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Errore comune

Writing entries that blame yourself or someone else instead of describing what happened and what caused it. The log only helps if the record is accurate.