Older and Weiser

Here is a recent comment we received from an Older and Weiser reader. Resolved: “mistakes were made.”
-Blog Editor

In times of crisis, acting dumb or sneaky is a risky strategy

Mistakes were made. Maybe you heard about it. The phrase has been a particular favorite – especially among politicians – for some time now.

President Richard Nixon used it several times in explaining events that took place during his administration; President Ronald Reagan also used it, referring to the Iran-Contra situation; President Bill Clinton said it in January of 1997 when discussing Democratic Party fund-raising scandals; and the former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (who would never be elected president because he is short; and apparently has a bad memory for dates and things that happened in his life; and possibly a couple of other reasons) offered the line as an explanation for the apparently illegal firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. But it’s not necessary to be a head of state or a cabinet member to wrap one’s self in the dubious implied nobility of such an admission.

Hey, stuff happens. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Let’s not start playing “the blame game.” People really don’t worry about such things. We have larger, more important things to deal with. Just imagine if a [insert here the name of anyone you believe is regularly treated better than you, such as a Democrat, a Republican, a minority, someone very rich, the president’s dog, etc.] had been accused of doing this! The media would look the other way.

Finding someone who admits to being responsible or accountable for the mistakes that were made can be quite a lengthy search.

“Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible,” noted Edward Liddy, CEO of the insurance giant AIG in 2008. Indeed. There were mistakes made and American taxpayers (without being asked if they wanted to) had to come up with $85 billion to bailout AIG. The Treasury, a little short on cash, borrowed the money. More bailout money was paid to other financial and corporate heavies who might be described, as the bosses of the legendary Enron often were, as “the smartest guys in the room.” Requests for information about the specific nature of the mistakes and who made them are nearly always met with…uh… nothing. In a noisy, busy, bustling world (and all of cyberspace), it suddenly gets very quiet.

According to the enormously helpful, but unreliable, Wikipedia, “Mistakes were made” is an expression that is commonly used as a rhetorical device , whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was handled poorly or inappropriately but seeks to evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by using the passive voice . The acknowledgement of “mistakes ” is framed in an abstract sense, with no direct reference to who made the mistakes. Well, okay then.

President George W. Bush announced the ushering in of “a new era of personal responsibility” in February of 2002. Some time later, at a press conference, when asked if he had made any mistakes during his presidency, he said he couldn’t come up with any off the top of his head. He didn’t take a moment to “phone a friend” or “ask the audience” for help. Mistakes were made but, by whom, remained a mystery to those who are supposed to know.

Perhaps it is unfair to single out former presidents or Pentagon officials or corporate CEOs who presided over billions of dollars that just sort of disappeared; or administrators whose programs appear not just to fail, but to actually make matters worse; or educators who graduate students with good grades when they appear to lack any discernable skills whatsoever.

The phrase “mistakes were made” is so common to the American lexicon now that it is also the title of a play, the name of a book and, since 2006, has spawned comics – MWM (Mistakes Were Made) based on the game Urban Dead .

But, setting aside the mistakes and disasters that followed the mistakes, the public has a history of forgiving. The inclination is to give another chance to people who acknowledge having done something wrong, apologize, cover the cost of damages, and promise not to do it again.

Of course, a much easier, but less costly solution in the short run is to denounce the messenger and decry the lack of people taking personal or corporate responsibility for what goes wrong, and then scramble to disassociate pretty much everyone from whatever happened. That – both short-term and long-term – raises the levels of cynicism, incivility and distrust at times when government, institutions, businesses, and relationships need trust and belief to succeed.

Admitting wrongdoing might seem like a pretty naïve (and potentially expensive) “strategy” in times when the “greed is good” mantra is being trotted out again. But building trust and creating a bond worked in business for a long time. The alternative approach produced a business environment that fosters anger, dissent, no sales, no customer or brand loyalty, and a strong anti-businesses sentiment. We could appoint a study group or a task force or an ad hoc committee to look at the matter… or we could just stop behaving like well-dressed incompetents and try returning to the idea of integrity, service, quality and value that built the nation’s businesses before those things became just empty words in an ad. It’s just a thought.

- joe

Filed under: Discussion by admin