When stepping in to solve a complex problem like climate change or a pandemic it is clear to most, that this means to step into an experiment.

All the actions taken up have an immediate impact. However, the impact is one we may not be able to measure until years later.

It also is a situation in which not acting has the same effect as acting. It too will one day have a measurable impact.

In such a situation focusing on errors becomes a distraction from attending to the task.

On a large scale, we usually don’t know what is right or what is wrong, it will show. And sometimes we’ll learn that a choice that once was good becomes a bad one later on. We have to hold on to short-term results we can see as well as the long-term results we seek to achieve.

It requires us to be focused on the long-term achievement we seek to attain while remaining in a continuous analyze, decide, act and reflect loop. It also implies assuming that those acting buy in, into a common intention to achieve that long-term goal.

In such a situation errors are expected and belong to the job.

Focusing on the error and the fact that something went wrong often times then becomes the effort to stop someone from acting. The problem perceived as an error is then used to blame the person who acted. Such a reaction comes from the assumption that the person either had to know what is right or voluntarily did something that served them more than the task.

Focusing the attention on what went wrong with such a mindset shifted the attention away from the task at hand to the person acting. It also takes away the responsibility of the many contributing while giving all these responsibilities to the one person chosen as the one to be blamed.

Beyond learning that in an experiment there is no right solution we need to learn that giving our trust to someone implies that problems will occur. We have to be ready for that.