The Art of Being Wrong

The art of being wrong isn't about admitting it to others. The 'real' art to being wrong is being able to constantly challenge your own conclusions and not be afraid to ask yourself, "could I be wrong about this?"

In the author's case (and in so many other examples just like this one), it did not occur to him to question his own conclusion -- hey, his own personal experience told him that this was a good guy and that was good enough for him. So good, in fact, that he ignored the contradictory experience from his team members.

It didn't occur to him that he might be wrong until he actually sat down and tried to work with this guy. At that point he realized that everyone else was right and he was wrong, but it was almost too late because he was on his way to losing his reputation from his team members.

He concludes the piece with the following statement, "Sometimes, we have to admit weakness in front of the people who’s respect we depend on the most. Don’t worry about it– despite what you might like to believe, they already know you’re human."

Being wrong about something doesn't mean that you are weak. It just means that you were wrong.

Near the end of the piece, the author states that it takes strength to admit your mistakes and you will grow from that experience. Unfortunately, I think he really misses the mark here in that the more important lesson that we can learn from this is how to avoid this kind of scenario in the first place: we must constantly challenge conclusions that we draw from personal experience.

It is only by constantly asking ourselves if we might be wrong that we can know with any degree of certainty when we really are right.

If you're wrong about something you can just say it. Just say you were wrong.