Errors and Learning from Errors at Work

Abstract

To understand what constitutes errors at work and, in particular, how productive learning might arise from those errors, it is necessary to go beyond viewing errors as only objective social facts. That is, only considering errors from the perspective of observable shortfalls in performance, as judged by others. Instead, it is necessary to also account for other and, in particular, personal premises for what constitutes errors at work, and how learning occurs as a consequence of errors and is shaped by cultural, situational and personal factors. In taking these ideas forward, this chapter discusses human performance at work, and proposes that making errors is central to learning, and that a consideration of errors, and how productive learning might arise from them, needs to be premised on socio-personal factors, not just as objective facts: a mistake made, even though that can be the case. Ultimately, both performance at work and learning are held as being socio-personal processes shaped through individuals’ engagement and negotiation with the social world. Therefore, to understand the nature of errors and their associations with learning, it is necessary to consider the contributions and relationships between objective social reality and individuals’ subjective concerns of experience and learning.